Tag: Action

In case you haven’t been keeping count, The Do-Over is movie #2 of the Sandler-Netflix collaboration. Netflix has said they don’t care about having the best movies, they just want a very diverse set of films, films that reach many different demographics and personality styles.

So they don’t always care about the critics. Which is why they offered Adam Sandler a four movie deal, because some people really like his brand of comedy, including the overseas market. Go figure.

Movie #1 was The Ridiculous 6, which I found very disappointing. The Do-Over seems to be going in a very different direction, both in terms of style, genre, and size of the cast. So there is a chance that this one ends up much better.

Holy crap, the promo images for this film are crap!

Charlie (David Spade) doesn’t like his life. And no, its not because the actor hasn’t had a hit in a long time. He is at his ten year high school reunion, watching his constantly cheating wife (Natasha Leggero) get down with the old high school prom king (Sean Astin). He is a bank manager, but the bank is inside of a grocery store. There are two step kids who treat him like shit. But then he sees Max (Adam Sandler).

Max has changed and seems really chill and cool now. And when his life goes on a vacation with him, Charlie decides to hang out with Max on a boat and have a great bro weekend. Then the boat explodes, Charlie is drugged, and Max takes him away.

Why? No, not to kill him. Max thinks that Charlie hates his life, so he decided to fake their deaths taking the identity of two people who recently died. They had a lot of money, a sweet vacation home, and they can just get away from it all and get a second chance at life. Or, you know, a do-over.

But there are problems with their plan, especially since the two men were murdered and those who are after them are going to come after them too. But that is a problem for later. Right now it is time to party party party.

Also starring Paula Patton, Kathryn Hahn, Nick Swardson, Catherine Bell, Michael Chiklis, Luis Guzman, and Torsten Voges.

Seriously, what do I do with any of these pictures? So generic.

The Do-Over just may very well be one of the okayiest movies I have ever seen this year. Almost on every front the film just feels average. The acting is as expected, the jokes are average, the twists are too many and the plot a little bit stupid. But some of the action scenes are entertaining, some of the jokes made me smile, and some of the twists were actually decent.

but taking it as a whole, there are a lot of stale moments. The intro goes on for too long. Too many fake identities for Sandler, and just too many twists overall.

It isn’t super strong on comedy or action, making the jokes and shots seem like after thoughts.

But when compared to the last 15 or so films, it is at least better than 12 of them. That is saying a lot about Sandler’s recent film career, but what it really says is that I loved You Don’t Mess With The Zohan and didn’t think Just Go With It, Pixels, or That’s My Boy were that bad. These comparisons still probably don’t sell the movie for you, and honestly, they really shouldn’t.

Would not super recommend.

One of the main reasons to become a film reviewer is the search for the perfect film. Sure, many contenders exist, but for every person it is their own unique quest.

I for one think that the perfect film already exists, and it is called O Brother, Where Art Thou?, so the perfect film is no longer my goal. I have to get more specific now. The perfect musical. The perfect super hero film. And of course, the perfect film for the geologist in your life.

Geologists in films are all over the place. Usually they are buffoons but sometimes they can be bad asses. My two most recent good Geologist performances have to go to Adam Scott in Piranha and Paul Giamatti in San Andreas, but both arguably bad films.

So why don’t we have a well acted geologist in a well acted film? I don’t know. America has failed. We have to turn to Norway. We have to turn to The Wave (or Bølgen) to see if they can do better.

Yep, this is 100% scientifically accurate. I can confirm that this is a wave.

Geiranger is a small Finnish village right in a fjord. It is a mountain village with beautiful scenery and a giant coast. And of course, it is a dangerous place to live. No real crime of course. This is a happy place, no one is mean in Norway. But should the plates shift too much and a landslide occur, then it will cause an enormous tsunami that would wipe out most of the village in mere minutes.

That is why it is important for them to have people watching out for them. People like Kristian (Kristoffer Joner). He is good at his job, monitoring squiggles and minor movements. He is so good at his job, that he has been offered a better job in a bigger city working for an oil company. Heck yeah!

And so he is about to move out of Geiranger, his home for many years. He has raised a family here. His wife, Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) works at the hotel. He has an older boy Sondre (Jonas Hoff Oftebro) and a little girl Julia (Edith Haagenrud-Sande). But they are ready to get out and move. Until some movements start to worry Kristian. He doesn’t want to jump the gun, but with the water table dropping, he has to do more research. He was supposed to take his kids on the ferry out, but he made them stay just to get more research.

Which is bad, because shit is about to go down. Large mass is about to go down. Down into the fjord. A tsunami. And once it starts they will only have about 10 minutes to get everyone up the mountain and in shelter.

Laila Goody, Arthur Berning, and Herman Bernhoft also play geologists and Thomas Bo Larsen and Mette Agnete Horn as a couple of hotel guests. Of course, also, Fridtjov Såheim as Arvid the Geology Boss.

Fuck your hotel. This wave isn’t some bitch ass tourist. It is here to stay!

Yay Kristoffer Joner! The man who can play a geologist and seem like a normal person, like a hero. So the criteria for a bad ass geologist was definitely met, as it was just a guy who wanted to protect his friends and family.

But how about the science? For the most part, the science was also accurate and not exaggerated. A nice plus that they could keep the thrills and excitement up without going “Hollywood” with it.

But the crew themselves were a bit disappointing. They shouldn’t have had to wait til the last moment to issue the siren to warn the town. Ineptitude for the sake of moving the story along. Not that they don’t seem like competent workers, it is just that if they have one job, they should know what their numbers mean.

The movie is well shot with good practical effects. The story itself isn’t new at all either. It doesn’t mean the movie isn’t good, just not entirely groundbreaking material. Heh heh heh.

Also, I thought Ane Dahl Torp did a fantastic job.

Is Kindergarten Cop good? I honestly don’t remember. My memories of it are fond, but that is based entirely on the 2-3 jokes I can actually remember. It came out 26 years ago and is probably objectively bad, but since it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and was directed by Ivan Reitman we can look back on it with some sweet ass nostalgia glasses.

So why the sequel? Fuck if I know. The rights were there, the plot was easy to put forward, and it would involve a large man dealing with kids. Basic 90’s comedy gold. I mean, that is when we also got Mr. Nanny! Nothing funnier than seeing someone with muscles do woman work and deal with shit head kids.

Despite everything, Kindergarten Cop 2 now exists. It is of course not at all related to the first film, straight to DVD, and we have to go on with our lives knowing this to be true. Barring time travel, Kindergarten Cop 2 will now always exist, and maybe even one day a Kindergarten Cop 3.

This would be the world gone mad should there ever be a KC3.

Agent Reed (Dolph Lundgren) is your typical tough guy, no nonsense, detective. His current worries involve getting a Zogu (Aleks Paunovic) into jail. Just your normal bad guy. They have someone in witness protection, Katja (Rebecca Olson), who was a part of his organization and is going to tell everything to put him behind bars.

Thanks to some Zogu shit, we find out that the servers may have been hacked in some way, and now a flash drive exists with the names and locations of everyone on the witness protection program. Zogu wants that flash drive to kill Katja and then no case can be made against him (outside of him killing Katja). But the flash drive was in the possession of a kindergarten teacher who is now dead.

Apparently the kids would know where it was, but after interviewing a few of them they find nothing. So they feel the only thing they can do is for Reed to go undercover and find the flash drive by interrogating them in a friendlier setting. But those darn kids are just so damn annoying.

Argh! Worst assignment ever, am I right?!

Starring Bill Bellamy as his partner, Fiona Vroom, Sarah Strange, Darla Taylor, and sure, let’s list some kids, Raphael Alejandro, Tyreah Herbert, and Abbie Magnuson.

Ah, kids! Still yelling! Ahh!

To be fair, this movie is probably very similar to the first one. I don’t remember. KC ended with the night scene at the radio tower or something right? Only one kid mattered. In this film the whole class was involved at the end, because then you can see little kids pummeling a bad guy. Hilarious!

But I found out the point of this movie. It was to complain about kids these days. That is about it. Schools coddling kids, not allowing things like peanut butter, or chocolate, and being nice and equal and shit. That is where half of the jokes come from. Like it was written by some old geezer who just doesn’t understand change.

The action? Not important or exciting. The Lundren/kid interactions? Not too great. Predictable. Standard.

Kindergarten Cop 2 isn’t even the type of film you would want to put on Netflix while cleaning your house. It is the type that you never watch. Ever. Just don’t.

Nice guys have gotten a lot of bad press lately. And that is because of the “nice guys” trying to take advantage of women by befriending them and expecting sex and berating them and being not nice people. So calling someone a nice guy is a pretty big insult.

And The Nice Guys movie happens to be coming out the same day as The Angry Bird Movie, what a whirlwind of emotions!

Fun fact, if you look at the last names of the leads of this film, you will realize that they are also, in fact, birds, making this seem like something more than a coincidence.

A gosling is a baby goose, for those uninformed shitters out there!

Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a private eye, raising his daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), alone. He mostly works sex jobs and things involving the porn industry, and screwing over old ladies into getting paid for working cases. Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is a hired muscle, paid to beat up stalkers, people messing with young women or daughters, just creeps in general.

And life is good for them both in the late 1970’s. That is until Healy is paid to beat up March, for “stalking” some chick named Amelia (Margaret Qualley). Except March wasn’t even looking for Amelia. He was paid to find Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio), a porn star who died a few days earlier, but whose aunt swore she saw her later.

Everything seemed to be going great after the beat down, until Healy headed back home and found two thugs (Beau Knapp, Keith David) trying to kill him. They too are looking for Amelia, whom Healy hasn’t seen in quite a few days. Something bigger is going on with this girl, and if he wants to feel safe at his home, he has to find her. So he might as well get some help. And he only knows why investigator who has any sort of luck finding her. You know it.

And then some shit goes down.

Also starring Kim Basinger, Yaya DaCosta, Matt Bomer, Jack Kilmer, Ty Simpkins, and Hannibal Buress as a giant killer bee.

Don’t stare. I did just fucking say a giant killer bee.

Ever here of this guy Shane Black? He actually wrote/directed Iron Man 3 and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, while also writing a bunch of Lethal Weapon movies and more action things. He loves action, and now he has written The Nice Guys, which has been in development hell. Him and his buddy, Joel Silver, a producer, have been just trying to write and rewrite it for years, and eventually they got the actors involved and made it as quick as they could.

And to Mr. Black and Mr. Silver, I would like to say, hey, thanks for keeping up the faith.

The Nice Guys was a hilarious movie. Gosling and Crowe have an incredible chemistry despite their age differences and in general very different film history. The comedy and timing between them as practically perfect. And even better than their characters had big flaws, not just strange stereotypes. After watching them in this film, I practically demanded a sequel, but the theater worker claimed he had no control over that.

The only other person worth noting is Angourie Rice, who plays the daughter, and was in the very terrible Walking With Dinosaurs. She was basically a third member of their group and really tied the film together. That also means that that for the most part, the rest of the cast weren’t really notable. And there are some decent names. Bomer felt robotic, Basinger/DaCosta didn’t feel natural, and Qualley as Amelia was forgettable.

A great action comedy for the leads and one that I hope spawns a future movie. It is still a film worth watching in theaters, but equally a good idea to watch with a group of friends at 3 am on a Saturday morning.

Here it folks, the big one. The Apocalypse is coming, despite everything Idris Elba did to cancel it.

The recent strange reboot of the X-Men franchise has been wildly successful. I enjoyed First Class and loved the crap out of Days of Future Past (which made my top of the year list), while also fixing some continuity issues that had been brought up. I used to like X2, but honestly, it hasn’t aged well with me, and I am tired as fuck of the Wolverine origin stories.

As a fan of the X-Men stories, Apocalypse has always felt like their biggest and greatest enemy. He is their Thanos or Darkseid. Not their main enemy, just their biggest threat. So to see it finally come to fruition on the big screen is both exciting and frightening. It is obvious why I am excited, but I am also frightened that I am over hyping the film. Days of Future Past did a lot of things right, so it will be hard for them to live up to that film. There are so many ways for X-Men: Apocalypse to go wrong.

But despite all this, I will do my best to not make fun of the way he looks.

He looks a lot less like Ivan Ooze in the actual film!

Ten years after the events of the last film, the world has changed for Mutants. After Mystique’s (Jennifer Lawrence) speech, mutants are a bit more understood and not completely seen as threats. In America, they can look weird and walk around and most people seem to accept them. It helps that Magneto (Michael Fassbender) has gone into hiding in Poland to live a new life, and Xavier’s (James McAvoy) school is a rousing success!

Until shit starts hitting the fan. Moira Mactaggert (Rose Byrne) discovers cults that are worshipping ancient beings believed to be the first mutants. Sure enough, bad events occur, and En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac) is out and about after being trapped and asleep for almost 5700 years. Go fuck yourself, Rip Van Winkle. What’s an ancient deity gotta do to get some respect around here? Make a new team of individuals to help him gain more powers and enslave the world of course! That is why we get to see new people, like Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Angel (Ben Hardy), and Mowhawk Storm (Alexandra Shipp)!

Ah, the end of the world. The best time to introduce young new guys to the fold too. Like Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Cyclopes (Tye Sheridan) who is of course Havok’s (Lucas Till) brother, Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Jubilee (Lana Condor).

Also returning: Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Evan Peters as Quicksilver, and Josh Helman as Col. William Stryker. And featuring Warren Scherer, Rochelle Okoye, Monique Ganderton, and Fraser Aitcheson as the original four horsemen.

Something new, something old (Apocalypse), and a whole lot of somethings blue.

With X-Men: Apocalypse, we now have our third 2.5 hour Superhero film of the year, which must the new normal. Please be different Dr. Strange. The timing felt good for Civil War, but it was too much of a run time for this film. Plenty could have been cut out to give a more straight forward and less clunky film.

Here is the good stuff though! I almost gave this a 3 out of 4, because what worked really worked. There is a scene that actually made me tear up in this film. It was then immediately when extra lives were somehow lost without making a whole lot of sense. I will say that Magneto’s reason for getting involved seem almost completely justifiable, and like normal, Fassbender and McAvoy basically carry the film. Lawrence isn’t bad in her role, although Mystique’s arc seems just a bit weaker. In terms of new characters, Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler does a fascinating job and Turner as Jean Grey grew on me over time. Quicksilver was a lot more involved in the plot and his moments were some of the highlights of the film again. It is great that they made him more integral to the plot and confirmed some of his backstory.

And finally (a vague spoiler) we have a film where characters can actually die from these extremely powerful individuals doing battle. Thank goodness.

For most of the other players, everyone else feels underutilized. Psylocke is only really used in one fight, we get a decent amount of Angel but it isn’t great, and Storm doesn’t have many great moments. And if you were one of the dozens excited to finally get Jubilee in film, then quickly suppress that excitement, because she does diddly squat. And of course we have the wonderful OSCAR ISAAC to play the big bad guy, but for half the film his voice is distorted and there is never really a moment where he can really display any great acting, which makes the casting feel a bit wasteful.

It could have been the 3D and theater settings, but the CGI felt weaker than Days of Future Past. Apparently Apocalypse’s powers involve turning items into sand and sand into items for the most part with the occasional cool purple thing. Add in Magneto’s electric field near the end and we just get a used over and over again ugly look to the whole film.

This movie is not as good as Days of Future Past, and maybe not even as good as First Class. It is still decently enjoyable though, but it features a clunky plot with a lot of underutilized characters. The good news is that for the parts that work, they work really damn well. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy some nice fan service?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier before 2016 was the best Marvel movie to date. It was solid all around, had the best action, the biggest stakes, and was nearly perfect. Before that, Captain America: The First Avenger was probably the second most solid solo film of Phase 1, behind Iron Man and also behind The Avengers.

Despite the resounding success of Captain America films and the Russo Brothers at directing, I was worried about Captain America: Civil War. Like, really really worried.

First of all, it is one of the only full plot lines I have actually read the comics for, so it holds a special place in my heart.

Second, I had seen a few trailers and I was worried about a lot of things. If the trailers gave too much away. That the plot felt forced (unnatural) and the big fight between the two groups would be cheesy. That the previous films didn’t set things up enough for the resentment to be believable.

A huge list of worries. I only need to state them out clear so I am not shown to be a fanboy. Especially after Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, I was ready for disappointment.

And no matter what happened, I would be Team Cap all the way.

This movie will make more sense if you saw Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man. I assume you did, because come on, Marvel.

The film actually starts out, after some flashbacks, in Lagos, Nigeria! Some current avengers (Captain America (Chris Evans), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)) are staking out important buildings, looking for Crossbones (Frank Grillo). Needless to say, not everything goes perfectly and some civilians get hurt. Namely, a group of missionaries!

Based on those events, the events in NYC, in Sokovia, and more, the world has decided to stand up in unity and demand action. Over 100 countries have signed the Sokovia Accords, which states that the Avengers will now only act if they have permission from a UN Panel, and of course, have to act if they deem it necessary. A few of the Avengers agree with these accords. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is feeling guilty and War Machine (Don Cheadle) is on his side. Hell, even Vision (Paul Bettany) feels it is necessary to avoid problems in the future.

But not Captain. He has trust issues with these sorts of groups now, and doesn’t want to be forced to step aside if he sees wrong doing, or be forced to do something he sees as wrong. So he doesn’t sign the papers. The papers are led by the King of Wakanda, T’Chaka (John Kani), who is especially pissed that their primary export was used to make Ultron. And sure enough, more bad things happen. Apparently The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) is at it again!

Fuck, so much shit. Captain believes Bucky is just brainwashed and wants to protect his old friend and not let the government kill him. So yeah, there is some conflict here. Captain and a few others agree to help him out, to get to the bottom of all of this, while the other guys have to stop them for negligently doing bad things to the UN and other officers. Fuck, who is right, I don’t know?!

Also featuring the return of Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), and Agent 13 (Emily VanCamp). And of course, introducing Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, Tom Holland as Spider-Man, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, and Daniel Brühl as Baron Zemo. William Hurt plays the Secretary of State and Martin Freeman as the head of the UN Avengers Council thing.

Shit Spider-Man, why do you gotta go and steal my boy’s shield like that?

Captain America: Civil War is two and a half hours long, but I found myself wanting more. I needed more. More of everything! I could spend the next 500 words just comparing it to BvS, but that wouldn’t be a review of this film, it’d just be a shitty comparison. So I will keep it short: Civil War did a lot of things right that BvS did not.

Civil War turns out to be a fanboy’s wet dream. The action is incredible throughout most of the film. For each and every spout of athleticism, you can understand the fight. There aren’t a thousand quick cuts or shaky cameras. You will not only see well choreographed fighting skill sets before your eyes, but each character fights true to their persona and powers, so no one ends up fighting the same. Of course, a lot of heroes end up fighting and battling with other heroes. We also get tons of team ups you haven’t seen before. All of this creates for some intense scenes with a whole lot of fan service.

Now now, I know what you are thinking. If basically everyone is a good guy with future films, the tension can’t be real. Well, for the most part you shouldn’t expect people to die. Because it is a comic book movie and all that reason. I am not saying people don’t die, but I am saying for sure a lot of people do get hurt, both physically and emotionally. This is not a movie that wraps up everything with a nice big bow, it changes the future landscape of the films…much like The Winter Soldier did.

On another note, Civil War doesn’t go the obvious route throughout the plot. It didn’t go the typical Marvel movie route. It didn’t just keep escalating the odds to ridiculous levels. It had emotional backing behind it, on every side and even on the villain side. Some can complain that the villain is too calculating, but when I compare his plan to someone like Lex Luther’s (fuck I did it again), his makes a lot more sense without ridiculous stretches.

Thank’s Black Panther. You are clearly just aggressively giving the shield back here.

Now here, allow me to hype things.

Black Panther HYPE! What a great introduction to this guy. He was shown to be strong, agile, moral with conflicting issues given his royal upbringing. His inclusion in this film was well written and explained, along with why he chose to fight. He is in this film a bunch, more than most of the other Avengers. I am so excited for this eventual film and future roles.

Spider-Man HYPE! Spider-Man was in this film a lot more than I expected as well. We got to see him as Peter Parker a bit as well for an introduction. His fighting was very spider like, along with his normal combat quips. They also showed his age really well, when compared to the old ass fuckers on the team, giving a clear and distinct gap in knowledge bases and general attitude.

Future films HYPE! I can’t wait for more. Like I said originally, I wasn’t looking forward to Civil War. After BvS, I certaintly wasn’t looking forward to Suicide Squad. All of my hopes were riding with X-Men: Apocalypse, which I don’t see as being good as the last two, and Doctor Strange, which I am pretty excited for. But now I have higher hopes for the future of Marvel films. Higher than I already anticipated.

On a final note, despite the large cast and significance of the plot, Civil War was worthy of being called a Captain America film. It wasn’t just Avengers 2.5. His characters was largely the focus of the film, but at the same time he wasn’t a simple protagonist. Chris Evans is GOAT, hooray movies.

I was forced into watching the trailer for The Huntsman: Winter’s War and I was confused. Based on the plot and what I remember about Snow White and the Huntsman, my timelines started to hurt. It said it was a prequel, but if events in the trailer happened in the prequel, how did we even get the first film? That was my main concern going in.

But before we get to that, it is hilarious that this movie even exists. Right after the first one came out, there was talk about a sequel but about The Huntsman instead of Snow White. The point of the first film was to give us a strong female lead character, so to kick her out for the sequel is just amusing.

Of course, there was also the scandal with the director, Rupert Sanders, and Kristen Stewart, having an extra martial affair thanks to the film. I wonder why they weren’t invited back…

There can only be so many queens in one picture.

Before the incidents of the first film, our Evil Queen (Charlize Theron) was marrying king after king, killing them, taking their kingdom, and moving on. She also had a family, namely, a sister. Freya (Emily Blunt) had no magical powers as she hadn’t unlocked them yet like the rest of her family, but after tragedy, sure enough, she had ice powers.

Freya runs to the North after losing her kids and decides if she cannot raise a baby she will raise an army (actual line from the film). So she begins to conquer nearby villages and kingdoms, stealing their kids so she could turn them into her own personal warriors. Her Huntsmen, as she calls them.

That is where we get to meet Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and Sara (Jessica Chastain), well, the kid versions of them. They are the best warriors, her cream of the crop, and they fall in love. But love is forbidden in her kingdom, for reasons. And if you remember the first film, you will remember that Eric was super drunk and depressed over the death of his wife Sara. It doesn’t take a genius to spoil what happens next.

Did I just spoil the whole movie? Nope. Because then it fast forwards to after the events of the first film. We have a prequel and a sequel. For the real plot of this movie, the magic mirror goes missing on its way to a Sanctuary to lock away its evil. So The Huntsmen is forced to go look for it to help end its evil. And on the way he has the help of some he-dwarves (Nick Frost, Rob Brydon) and she-dwarves (Sheridan Smith, Alexandra Roach).

Of course this might put him on a path to go against The Ice Queen, which is good since he hates her and all. Sam Claflin briefly resumes his past role and Sope Dirisu is also a Huntsman with speaking roles to make the cast more diverse.

You’re god damn right I’m reviewing The Huntsman and not showing The Hunstman in the pictures. #GirlPower

Off the bat, this film is definitely superior to the original, but it is still not a great film. The idea of having it as a prequel was weird to me as I couldn’t imagine a good enough story to take place pre-Snow White. And a sequel was weird because I imagined it would only dampen the point of the first film. So it did both and did the best it could to try to make a coherent story.

I have problems with the prequel, because if there is this terrible Ice Queen up North ravaging the country side, you’d think someone would mention it in the first movie. Maybe even that the Queen had a sister. The only part not shoe horned in is the fact that Sara was his wife and she dies. But even that was poorly done and didn’t seem like the type of thing that would drive him to years of depression and booze.

As for the sequel, yes it does cheapen the first film, but the first film was bad. The adventure wasn’t that great, the plans were still piss poor. The special effects were a bit better as was the humor, thanks to the dwarves and Hemsworth playing a happy Huntsman. The fight scenes in general were a lot better as well.

The film still suffers from a rushed ending with a lot of silly actions from the characters. I was pretty sure I heard the narrator say that Freya was betrayed by her sister early on, but apparently Freya didn’t know that? The betrayal came at the very end and the fact that it was supposed to be a surprise confused me.

Other minor notes: Yes, Blunt had to play someone emotionless, but it was terrible. Chastain and Hemsworth had great chemistry. Theron should not have been in this film. And this film has goblins, but these goblins are basically apes with horns with tar in their blood, reminiscent of fantasy trolls. Of course, the first film had a troll that was nothing like the fantasy troll, so they instead had to call them goblins.

The most ungoblin-y goblins I have ever seen.

This is Disney doing a live action remake of one of their old animated films. Nothing new about that of course. The Jungle Book has already had a live action remake once (it’s bad), and it is based on an older story, so they wanted to get theirs out there quickly.

But did you know about the other Jungle Book movie, Jungle Book: Origins? The one directed by Andy Serkis to showcase new motion cap technology? I had thought that one was supposed to come out this year, to get all doppleganger film-y and all. But nope, its release date was October of 2017. And just because this one is getting such good ratings, they pushed it back to October of 2018.

Sucks for that Jungle Book. Especially since I am pretty sure it was announced first and it is already in post production now, we just have to wait 2.5 years.

Unless it gets pushed back again. Because this film, the Disney Jungle Book, already has announced a sequel. It is like Disney is just trying to screw over poor Andy.

[Editor’s note: Since writing this but before publishing, Serkis’ movie has now been renamed to just Jungle Book, probably increasing future confusion. But at least it won’t sound like a prequel anymore.]

Oh well Andy. Hakuna Matata or whatever it is that bears say.

Mowgli (Neel Sethi), the poor little man-cub, was abandoned in the Jungle when he was but a toddler. The noble Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), a black panther, discovered him and felt pity. Even though Man is a danger to the jungle, he was but just a cub and would die on his own and he needed a family of his own. So he brought Mowgli to the wolf pack. There he could learn to be a wolf and there would be a shit ton of wolves to help protect them.

The wolf pack leader, Akela (Giancarlo Esposito) agreed to take him in, but really he was raised by Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o) as one of her cubs.

But eventually the ferocious tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) finds out about Mowgli’s existence. He hates Man and knows what they can do, so he needs to be killed before he destroys them all. He threatens the wolf pack and eventually it is decided that Mowgli needs to be taken to the closest man village to protect him. So Bagheera agrees to take him there.

Of course that doesn’t work. A nice tiger attack separates the two of them, and Mowgli has to live on his own in the Jungle. Mowgli now has to survive on his own, when big ass boa constrictors (Scarlett Johansson) are trying to eat him, even more big ass Orangutans (Christopher Walken) are capturing him, and bears (Bill Murray) are trying to befriend him for food help. Oh that last one isn’t too bad.

Also Sam Raimi and Jon Favreau voice a couple animals, how neat.

Trusssssssssst meeeeeeee, it is very neeeeeeeeat.

The Jungle Book is another modern movie where literally every main character is voiced by a very famous person not known for their voice work. There are some cubs and minor animals with who the hell knows voice people, but for the most part we are squandered in celebrities. And not every celebrity with a unique voice makes them great at voice work. Robin Williams has an obvious voice, but each character was unique and special. Not every character felt unique and special.

Let’s start with the good voice actors. I really liked Elba, Nyong’o, Johansson and Kingsley. At least Johansson is known for one voice work (Her), but everyone else seemed to bring some passion and heart into their voice. I hated Kingsley’s Bagheera at first, but I grew into it and it felt natural. Elba was the real powerhouse here as Shere Khan and was a voice to be reckoned with.

On the other hand, Baloo the bear just sounded like a lazy Murray in a bear suit. And of course King Louie as Walken was just all over the place. It turned what should have been a scarier scene into a joke, because it is Walken’s voice and he didn’t change anything about it.

Speaking of voices, I was worried from the trailers that everyone would sound like they were just in a recording studio as they did their lines, but the post-production guys did a good job of making everything natural.

As for one final complaint about voices, this film suffers from animal talking inconsistencies. They are in a Jungle and everyone can talk and understand each other? Cool. It isn’t just Mammals either, because we have the snake joining in the fun. But you know who cannot talk? Elephants for some reason. They only make Elephant noises. Bees only buzz, and about 800 monkeys just squeak and shrill, despite the orangutan singing and yelling. This might seem like a minor complaint, but that is the sort of lack of forethought that just creates a technically confusing universe. Give me all, or give me none, but don’t give me arbitrary rules that make certain animals just into animals.

The visuals and animation for the animals were extremely top notch. Everything for the most part felt realistic, outside of one stampede scene, and I have no complaints from that. The jungle itself was also a diverse and beautiful setting and it made viewing the film a great experience.

And sure, I liked that they included a few of the original songs. They did feel out of place and didn’t sound as great as the cartoon, but still keeping them was a nice touch.

The Jungle Book is a great adaptation, but it could have been the BEST adaptation if they went for top tier talent and consistency.

Heh. Hardcore Henry. It isn’t necessarily a bad title, but it is slightly suggestive. Still, it is a better title than its previous iteration, just Hardcore. And I could be wrong, but I think before that it might have just been called POV.

Either way, it isn’t the safest film to google image search.

Ahem, but in case you didn’t know, this film is shot entirely from the first person point of view. It is 100% GoPro camera, specially mounted on a face mask, not awkwardly on top of the head. This movie promises to be very similar to many modern shooting games, except with realistic arm placement on the camera.

It’s a new experience, so let’s just jump on in feet first and get wet.

Hello Henry! I guess, you are Henry. No one actor played Henry, mostly a bunch of stuntman and the director. And since it is your point of view, and since Henry doesn’t remember his past, then sure, you can be Henry. Congrats!

Henry/You wake up in a science laboratory, where Estelle (Haley Bennett) is there to add some robot limbs to your body and let you know that you were husband and wife. Don’t worry, you will remember eventually. Just before they can reinstall his voice software, some very European guy named Akan (Danila Kozlovsky) breaks in and starts killing people. And he has telekinesis, cool.

Either way, Henry has to escape and run from a giant Akan army of masked unnamed soldiers. He quickly meets Jimmy (Sharlto Copley), who knows about his situation and seems helpful. At the same time, he keeps showing up almost everywhere with elaborate disguises and surviving extreme situations. Very strange. Henry needs to trust someone, needs to take down Akan, and needs to save his wife. And hopefully get his memories back.

Also starring Andrei Dementiev as Slick Demetri, Oleg Poddubnyy as Yuri the henchman, and Darya Charusha and Svetlana Ustinova as dominatrices.

Oh and Tim Roth! For like, one quick unfulfilling scene!

Despite appearances, Jimmy is not a time traveling soldier.

Hardcore Henry is the type of movie that delivers on its promise and not much more. If you want almost non stop action with the unique filming style, you will get it. A decent plot and acting? Eh, calm your expectations.

The director has said they wanted to do this movie with the intention of making it a personal experience for the viewer, and not the video game angle, but that doesn’t really hold water. In this movie we have an escort mission, dozens of different weapons, chase mission, and even a last ditch health pack type situation before the big boss fight. It felt like a video game. The personal experience angle never really works, because it isn’t a 4D film. We aren’t getting turned around left or right every time he does, so our head doesn’t move with the scene. That is a vital component if it wanted the audience to feel like the protagonist.

Honestly, the reason I am even giving this film an average rating is thanks to Sharlto Copley. He really makes this movie, his characters are wonderful and, at times, incredibly campy. Without a character like him and just a voiceless action star, it would be a boring film with the occasional headache.

At the end of the day, it is a unique style and so it can have some points for trying. But should this art form continue in the future, I hope we can remember this as the starting point and not the best the genre had to offer.

I could never really get into Red vs Blue, but I also never really got into Halo. There could be a correlation there! I tried probably three times to start Red Vs Blue, but never finished season 1 despite liking it. Then years later I would try again, and of course start over to understand the “plot”, eventually stop before season 1 ended, and it continued on and on.

That being said, I am not entirely familiar with anything else Rooster Teeth has done. But they did make a movie, Lazer Team, and after being in theaters for only two weeks, it was released on YouTube Red. YouTube Red is a subscription based YouTube service that has no ads and lets you run it in the background on your phone as a music player. And hey, it has some original shows and movies on there as well, with Lazer Team being one of its first major films to be released on the platform.

How neat!

I mean, none of this says anything about how good it is. But it does show how neat it is.

I expect a piles of lasers in a movie with this title. All kinds too. Especially the pew pew variety.

In the 1970’s, the US government received a message from aliens and were able to secretly decode it. They found out that eventually an alien race would come to destroy the Earth. But in order to help them, the Antareans would send them a single power suit a few days before they get there so they would have a chance. So they found a gifted baby and raised him to be the perfect man. Adam (Alan Ritchson) would be the strongest, fastest, and smartest person they could develop, and he would save the Earth one day!

Or not. Now in modern day, after a series of events, we have a few modern slackers and dummies in the same spot. Hagan (Burnie Burns) is a low level sheriff in the small town and hasn’t ever done anything great with his life. He has in his custody Zach (Michael Jones), a talented high school football quarterback, who has the hots for Hagan’s daughter (Alexandria DeBerry) and is an idiot. Herman (Colton Dunn) used to be a quarterback at the high school, but couldn’t go on to college or pro because Hagan missed a block in their last game, giving him a permanent leg injury. And Woody (Gavin Free) is Herman’s dumb friend.

Due to alcohol and arguing, they accidentally end up shooting a UFO out of the sky, before it can make it to the military base. They discover the suit and begin to put the pieces on. Hagan gets a glove that makes a shield, Zach a glove that can shoot lasers, Herman some boots that can make him fast, and Woody a helmet that will eventually make him smarter. They of course don’t know any of this at the time, but eventually the pieces once activated merged themselves permanently to their body.

Which of course means, this group of losers have a few days to figure out how to work as a team, because they are now the only hope the world has. Also featuring Steve Shearer as the main military commander.

Only one of them even has a laser! How sad.

Lazer Team is a small budget sci-fi comedy, and knowing that helps lower your expectations going in. This is not going to be Turbo Kid, which is also an indie film, but had a lot behind it to make it something special. No, this is a movie where plot and effects are secondary, what the creators and actors are really after are the laughs. They want to make you giddy and smile.

And on that note, they still only do just an okay job.

The main character by Burnie Burns (aka one of the greatest names ever), the writer of this film and main member of Rooster Teeth, is playing the straight man so he rarely has the better moments. He is extremely passive and throughout the film I never really get behind him to root for him. No, the only character I care about is Zach, the dumb ass quarterback, because he is the funniest one. Michael Jones looks like a poor mans Adam Devine, but he works well in this film.

They had one character who isn’t smart, get the helmet to make him super smart. Unfortunately, a lot of those jokes don’t have a huge effect, because we barely knew him as a dumb character before the changes started. It did lead to some nice jokes, but most fell flat given the lack of history with him.

Even though the jokes were only just okay, I did end up liking the ending of the film. Some good action and explanation happen and it is an ending that can make one look forward to future films. Just disappointed that some of the action scenes earlier on didn’t seem to pack as much punch.

Oh well. Okay film, good first try, do better next time or I will come down on you with the rage of a lower-tier film critic!