Tag: Action

The 5th Wave, title alone, already pisses me off. I really wish it was spelled out as Fifth, and not the number. That is a minor complaint.

The title itself just comes with so much weight to it though. We are already on the 5th wave? Man, we just started though. That means four other waves happened and we need to catch the fuck up so we can be prepared for the next one.

I have been told it is decent book. It is a planned trilogy with the last one coming out this year. The producers liked it, one of them being Tobey Maguire, and signed it to a trilogy of films!

And you know what else? This is a quote from a critic. This is what the series should do. It “should do for aliens what Twilight did for vampires.” Oh god. Oh god no.

Love at first scope sight.

Let’s get this done with. Aliens appeared. Circled the globe in a big ship. Then after awhile, all electricity stopped. Anything with a motor, all of it. That was wave #1. The 2nd wave was massive flooding caused by earthquakes. Took out most coastal cities and lakes also boiled over. The 3rd wave was a modified avian flu that took out tons of people. Most people who caught it died. The 4th wave involved the aliens taking over human bodies like parasites. Apparently they still look and act human but you don’t know who is out to get you!

Our hero is Casey (Chloe Grace Moretz) who used to be a normal high school girl. She had her crush on Ben (Nick Robinson), a BFF Liz (Gabriela Lopez, who I will say is barely in this movie, but I can’t imagine her not coming back eventually and I want to say I called it by tagging her in this review), loving parents (Ron Livingston, Maggie Siff) and little brother Sam (Zackary Arthur).

Eventually, shit goes bad, and Casey is alone. Her brother Sam was saved by the army, thankfully. That Colonel Vosch (Liev Schreiber) sure is a swell guy. Of course he is taking the kids to train them into soldiers to battle the Others (aliens!), where the 5th Wave is allegedly a full on attack. Oh boy.

Thankfully Casey runs into Evan Walker (Alex Roe) Mr. Farm Boy dream man, who saves her from dying alone on the highway. Turns out she is allergic to bullets. He has a thing for her, so he wants to help her get to the army base and reconvene with her brother. They just have to make it 60 miles on foot with alien snipers everywhere.

Also starring Maria Bello as an army person, and Maika Monroe as a fellow child soldier who would have bad ass tattooed on her actual ass if it wasn’t sexist.

Is it? Can it be? Can it be a…LOVE TRIANGLE!?

The 5th Wave wasn’t very good. It could have been good. It had an interesting premise. I won’t say it was ruined only by teenage angst. No, there were a lot of issues, and teenage angst on its own is not an issue.

Plot wise, so many things occurred in the film due to poor decisions or badly explained reasons. How did Casey get separated from her parent and brother? Because of shit plot. Specifically when she was separated from Sam, it was one of the most badly done things I have ever seen. So much that it didn’t even make sense for her to get left behind. Aliens involved or not, the way they filmed it couldn’t have been more ridiculous.

After the introduction, we have two main plots. Casey on her own, and the training facility for kids. That is where we get to see high school crush Ben and her brother. Almost everything involved with the army base is cringe worthy. I think part of it is supposed to be, because they aren’t real soldiers, just kids. But it comes off as just awkward and stays that way. Only half the scenes with Casey are cringey, and unfortunately it is all of romantic interactions between her and Evan. Now, as a straight adult male, I can definitely see why Alex Roe was picked for Evan. He is dreamy and has facial hair and a somewhat slightly athletic build. But the chemistry between them is just awful.

A lot of the plot happens off screen it feels like. Like the 60 miles of traveling that the two apparently hiked through the woods relatively quickly. Or even worse, one aspect of the finale involving bombs. One of our characters apparently puts on a God Mode cheat and they become an invincible plot changing character, doing all these amazing things with ease, just to end the current conflict. The bad guys don’t even act bad in this film. Everyone is all talk and nothing terrible seems to happen, outside of the one “shocking” moment early on. All the twists are obvious and the film ends at an okay point, but not with a whole lot resolved.

They did have tsunamis in this film though. You remember the 2nd wave. They looked pretty realistic though, it was appropriately scary and cool, so I liked that. Bello’s random character had a lot of intensity to it, so she also surprised me. But everything else about this new teenager sci-fi/fantasy romance film series is forgettable. We all make mistakes sometimes, Moretz.

Confession time. I did not do my due diligence. But I did almost just say “do do”. If I am ever going to watch a movie part of a pre-existing franchise, I always make sure I have seen all the previous films before it. Just recently I had to watch all the Alvin and Chipmunks before Alvin and the Chipmunk: The Road Trip. I did it with Madagascar 3 and I did it with Ice Age 4.

The theme for all of these are kid movies, but I have to do something similar when Resident Evil: The Final Chapter comes out. Kid movies are easy to do, and honestly, can multi task like a beast through them.

But I did not see Ip Man or Ip Man 2. I have known about them for at least 3 years and heard good things, but never sat down to see them. Getting to review Ip Man 3 was kind of last minute, the kind of last minute that didn’t allow me to put a lot of time into two whole movies full of subtitles. But I read pretty excellent plot outlines on them (Wikipedia), and hey, if I like this one, they are certainly going to be watched within a few months!

Oh I know that guy. This is now familiar and I am no longer afraid.

Alright, Hong Kong! Did you know that something from Hong Kong was called Hong Konese, not Hong Kongian? The more you know.

Ip Man (Donnie Yen) is living with is wife (Lynn Hung) and youngest son, and he is now a successful martial arts teacher. He is a Master at a big school, where masters work together and have their own disciples, including Master Tin (Ka-Yan Leung).

Despite the police force in Hong Kong, crime is still rampant with many street gangs. An American developer, Frank (Mike Tyson) is trying to muscle in his way to HK and is using locals to do the work for him. He hires a former student of Master Tin, Ma King-Sang (Patrick Tam) to force a school to sell its prime real estate to him. Thankfully, Ip Man’s son goes to that school, and he helps guard the school from the vandals.

But that is not all! No, there is also a Cheung Tin-chi (Jin Zhang), who also studied under the same master as Ip Man. However, he claims to be the better martial artist. Apprently Ip Man teaches a modified version of Wing Chun while Cheung knows and teaches the official way. He wants to challenge for title of Grand master, but first he has to earn money (with the bad guys!) despite morals, and make his own gym a big deal.

Also featuring some wife drama. And featuring Karena Ng as Miss Wong a teacher, Kent Cheng returning as Fatso, and Kwok-Kwan Chan playing a young Bruce Lee, whom Ip Man most famously trained.

I want to wear all of the cool outfits, but have no energy to become a grandmaster. 🙁

I had to take some serious notes throughout the film to make sure I wouldn’t get confused, given my unfamiliarity with the back ground. But thankfully, Wikipedia’s plot outline for the third film is also pretty detailed. It just has a big spoiler in the first few sentences, which is stupid.

I loved the fight scenes in the film. They ranged from elegant (the fight scene between the two Wing Chun masters) to extreme (Ip Man taking on what felt like 1,000 fighters, workers, gang members while protecting his son). And they were all so very good. I enjoy the crap out of a fight scene where I can actually tell what is going on. The actors and stunt fighters (if there are any?) did a wonderful job and every jab, punch and strike is visible and well choreographed. In particular, I also really enjoyed a fight scene down a stair case with a lot of interesting angles.

The biggest problem with the movie is that the whole thing seems messy. I was worried about describing the plot, because it seemed to go so many different ways. It wasn’t one nice and easy to follow story, which I believe the other films might have been. Maybe none of the plots were big enough for a film, or they had all these things they wanted to say and only wanted to do them in a single movie for budget reasons. Who knows. But it is quite crowded and at times it meanders.

Yen has a lot of charm as our lead character and watching him definitely made me want to watch the other films. He is extremely charismatic, but in a quiet way, and it is nice having an honest good person to cheer for in the movies. Too many anti-heroes nowadays. Ip Man is a saint.

I almost watched The Grandmaster a few years ago, but the US release was delayed for some reason. And because of that, I forgot about the film, but it is about the same man. I have to believe he was the coolest dude to have this many movies about his life.

Ip Man 3 was the exact thing to get me back into watching martial arts film. I was planning on re-watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the first time since I was 11 before the sequel is released, and I think I finally have the energy to do it.

Two years ago, I was facing another hoard of January movies and afraid of what might come out. But I had seen a trailer for Ride Along months before and was a bit excited about it. Kevin Hart can amuse me and the concept seemed funny enough. It was going to be the movie to save January for me. I was so ready for it.

And then it was average. It being average made me feel even more disappointed since I had such high hopes for it. That Awkward Moment ended up being my good January movie.

That’s right, with fucking Zac Efron.

And now two Januaries later, we have Ride Along 2. Kevin Hart also had The Wedding Ringer last January, making it three years in a row he has had a film come out that month. That is never a good sign for an actor. I hope he is getting some other roles out there somehow.

This time with new hilarious side characters who are from the finest of films before this one!

The sequel takes place only a few months later, I think. Ben Barber (Hart) is now a police officer, but he is in the mentoring stage and not a full time cop just yet. So he gets to shadow other cops, lieutenants and detectives, like James (Ice Cube)!

After a drug bust gone bad, James finds a mysterious USB drive with a crazy hard to beat encryption. Thankfully the hacker who did it left a calling sign and they are able to track it to A.J. (Ken Jeong) out of Miami. James only agrees to take Ben along with him as part of his training as a wedding present to his sister (Tika Sumpter). Oh yeah, the wedding is in a week, so hopefully they get back in time.

Oh no! It turns out A.J. is involved in a murder plot. And maybe someone out to murder him as well. This turns their quick Miami trip into working with Detective Maya (Olivia Munn) to solve the whole thing before they get dead. And not a spoiler, as it is the first scene, it is clearly the nice rich ship dude, Antonio Pope (Benjamin Bratt) behind everything. They just have to figure that out using their smarts first.

Also featuring Michael Rose, Sherri Shepherd, Carlos Gómez, Bruce McGill, and even smaller roles by Arturo del Puerto, Tyrese Gibson, and Glen Powell.

As I said and I shall repeat again, the finest of films I tell you!

Ride Along 2 was worse than the first film. It is an Action Comedy that has barely any laughs and non exciting action. It is a bore, which is definitely not an emotion you ever expect from either of those genres. You can totally expect that from Dramas.

In terms of humor, I did find one part near the plot finale did make me laugh. I laughed out loud and a lot, it was a nice shake up. But one great joke doesn’t save the film. Maybe I am getting immune to Kevin Hart’s ranting. Ice Cube had to play a serious guy, but 98% of his jokes fell completely flat. As for the action, it seemed almost like a parody without it being a parody. It had so many action cliches it was like watching something that came out of the 90’s but it never was aware of that fact. Explosions for every minor thing (which can be funny if intentional, like in 21 Jump Street), terrible shoot outs, and never any real fear or worry behind it.

There was one car chase scene where, in order to explain why Ben was a great driver during it, the film became to morph into a pretty bad looking video game. It was supposed to be similar to Grand Theft Auto, but the constant shifting of the game in his mind and in reality was only a major annoyance and took away from what could have been one of the more exciting parts of the film. In that sense, it is another example of what some movie in the 90’s might have done, but nowadays only a straight to DVD film would think that is a good idea.

On a final note, do you know the last time a movie decided to place its sequel in Miami? Do you? It was fucking 2 Fast 2 Furious, a travesty of a movie, and it is a surprise the franchise didn’t die on the spot. I don’t see this franchise lasting 7 movies, because at least The Fast and the Furious was decent. This is two weak films in a row.

EuroTrash is a word I have never used on my website before, but I am starting to think it is time.

There is a genre of films that seem to want to give action/thriller/dramas, they set them in Europe, and take them all over to various major cities and countries. This lets them show off Europe and get very different visual patterns, regardless of whether or not they are useful to the plot. One could argue something like Spectre was a bit of WorldTrash.

But one man does EuroTrash better (worse?) than anyone else, and that man is Luc Besson. Besson is basically the Gorgon Reviews antithesis. Everything he has touched since The Fifth Element is shit or whatever one step above shit is.

I, like a lot of other people, watched the entire Transporter trilogy. I wondered how and why each sequel was made, as the quality decreased despite never starting out high. One or two cool action scenes does not an interesting film make. But at least we got some Jason Statham.

Now we have The Transporter Refueled. A reboot, with no Statham, but the same boring EuroTrashy Transporter vibe. Fuck this, Besson.

Oh he wears a suit, that is what makes this one stand out.

Frank (Ed Skrein), aka Transporter, is a dude who delivers packages discreetly for high profile contacts. He doesn’t ask questions, he doesn’t ask for names, and he doesn’t change things in the middle of a run. His dad (Ray Stevenson) used to do the same job, I think. Honestly I don’t remember too much about it, except that he is finally about to retire from whatever.

Frank gets a job offer from Anna (Loan Chabanol), who of course he doesn’t know anything about. But later that day he is to pick up her and two sort of large packages and then transport them. He didn’t expect that the packages would be two other women (Tatiana Pajkovic, Gabriella Wright) who are dressed up just like her.

Turns out he just became part of an elaborate plot by a few prostitutes to kill Arkady Karasov (Radivoje Bukvic), a human trafficker, who abused Anna. But they are going to extreme measures, and they even kidnapped Frank’s dad to force him to comply. What the hell ladies.

Also starring Wenxia Yu as an additional accomplice, and Lenn Kudrjawizki, Yuri Kolokolnikov, and Noémie Lenoir.

They are all dressed up as classy Leeloo.

Fucking EuroTrash. At least in this film he technically doesn’t go all over the place. But because he is a driver, we get some car chases through classic European cities, with their silly looking license plates.

The Transporter Refueled was a bore, which means it is basically like the other previous three Transporter films. There were two remotely interesting fight scenes. The plot was convoluted. The acting was piss. The characters were far too many and far too unimportant.

This film is 100% a waste of anyone’s time. Even the five of you who may have been hoping for a new Transporter film, Statham or not, will probably be disappointed. The action itself is mostly generic and this is the type of filth that should be going straight to DVD and not wasting a screen in those poor movie theaters.

Follow up, damn you Luc Besson. The next terrible thing he is bringing out is Lucy 2, so you know it will also be shit.

Quentin Tarantino is a crazy sunuvabitch.

He has passion, you gotta agree with that. He loves movies and wants movies to be real. Christopher Nolan and him are some of the only reasons film is even relevant anymore.

Tarantino had a lot of problems leading up to The Hateful Eight. Like when his script was leaked before they even began filming, causing him to cancel it completely. After awhile, he apparently changed some things and did it eventually.

He also wanted to film the whole thing on 70mm film, but barely anyone had a projector that could play it. So he decided to just provide free cameras to almost a hundred movie theaters across America, just so people everywhere could see his film in the vision he had in his mind. I can respect that, but I also think he is a single man on a mission to move a mounain. So we will see if his lunacy gets us anywhere. Until then. H8FULL8.

“Replace more parts of words with numbers, I dare you.”

Set a few years after the end of the Civil War, and thus, after Lincoln’s assassination, The Hateful Eight is about a group of would be killers, maybe killing each other.

Namely, John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell), rocking the same facial hair he had in Bone Tomahawk, is bringing a bounty to Red Rock to get executed. Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a very bad murderer and she has a $10,000 bounty on her head, dead or alive. Well, Ruth brings them in alive, because they deserve to have justice done to them. By hanging. Hanging justice. He is nicknamed The Hangman.

Unfortunately, they are currently racing against a mighty big blizzard and his driver, O.B. (James Park) is hoping to get him to Minnie’s Haberdashery before it hits so they can have a place to stay until it all melts. Along the way though, he runs into Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a bounty hunter with his own set of bodies heading to the same place. He is able to get a ride. But they also run into Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), son a Rebel leader who claims he is going to be the new Sheriff of Red Rock!

But when they got to Minnie’s, Minnie wasn’t there. She apparently was away to visit relatives and left Señor Bob (Demir Bichir) was left in charge. Other patrons included Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), a British literal Hangman, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), a cow puncher visiting his mom, and General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), from the Rebel side looking to bury his son.

Ruth thinks someone is lying. He thinks someone here is not who they say they are and looking to free Daisy and kill all the witnesses. People are lying, and now everyone might die because of it.

Also featuring some less hateful people, Dana Gourrier, Gene Jones, Zoë Bell, and Channing Tatum.

Tim Roth is actually just playing the real life Christoph Waltz.

The Hateful Eight feels like a play, and I love plays. It is definitely the best part of the film and it is why I might want to watch it over and over. The action is of course another big part, graphic and very violent once it gets going. Not as violent or crazy as his previous films, but it is still pretty up there.

The 70 mm version of the film, which is what this is based off of, did not feel too long at over 3 hours. It went quickly because there was rarely a dull moment. And hell, an intermission meant I could buy a drink and not torture myself for two hours refusing to leave my seat. The overture was a nice touch and of course the music throughout.

The film is tonally different over its two halves and I wasn’t as excited during the second half. The whole thing is set up as a mystery as to who is a liar and a cheat. Without spoiling, let’s just say the whole thing let me down. It was unexpected surely, but not in a good way. There were still some great acting moments in it, and some of the scenes were very tense, but damn, it just wasn’t that sexy of a reveal.

I cannot say for certain of the 70 mm actually added a lot to the film, it’d be hard to without seeing both versions. I believe the digital version is about 20 minutes shorter including the intermission, but I have no idea what they’d cut out of it.

Not Tarantino’s best work, and worst of his most recent films, but still quite memorable and worthy of multiple viewings.

Here is what I can tell you:

This review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be super unbiased. Why? Because I am not a hardcore fan boy of the series like most critics I know. I didn’t watch the original trilogy over and over as a kid, and didn’t even see them as an adult. Each film of the original trilogy I have only seen once, and honestly, I get why they were popular then, but think most of it is just nostalgia a la Tron love. Tron is technically terrible, it just did something no other film did before it, so it was a big deal and loved for that reason. If I saw Star Wars as a kid, I might be hooked as well.

I am not saying I hate Star Wars, as that would still be biased. I am just very neutral and ambivalent towards it. I liked KOTOR as a game, so that is one thing I enjoyed. And yes, Episode III might be my favorite Star Wars film, solely for the ending magma battle and shouting.

Here is one more thing I can tell you:

No, I don’t think this review will have a ton of spoilers. I didn’t watch any trailers myself to keep it completely fresh in my mind. I waited days after its released and walked through the internet like a minefield to keep my take on it fresh, despite the news stories of its success. I wanted to wait, so I could watch it in an enjoyable way with a small crowd to not sway my opinion one way or another. Will I reveal basic plot points? Of course, but if that is a spoiler, then fuck me, everything is a spoiler.

This is how I be dodging spoilers on the internet.

Set 30 years after Return of the Jedi, shit has once again hit the fan. Remember Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill)? Yeah, he was a big deal. He has been missing for a long time now though and might just be the last Jedi. Turns out there are still bad people. They aren’t the Empire anymore, they are the First Order. And they are looking for him.

So are the Resistance, which is of course led by Leia (Carrie Fisher), a General now. You can’t really call yourself a Princess anymore when your only claim to royalty blew up in the first half of A New Hope.

Either way, she sends her best pilot down to Jakku on hearing that there is a clue to his whereabouts. You’re thinking Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbaccca (Peter Mayhew)? Hell no! We’re talkin’ Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac)! He is like the new Han Solo, I guess.

And that is the plot outline basically given to us by the rolling credits to start the film. Since I don’t want to freak anyone out. First Order bad. Luke is gone. And more question marks.

But there are still new characters! Rey (Daisy Ridley) is the new Luke and Finn (John Boyega) was a storm trooper, and also New Luke. I guess. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is new Darth Vader and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) is new Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin.

Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) is new Yoda, Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) is new Palpatine, and Anthony Daniels is still C3P0. Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) is a silver storm trooper commander, and I guess she is just a new thing completely. But she has almost no real reason to be in this film, to be honest.

Princess Leia really let it all go for this film.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is an entertaining film. It has likable characters. The new people seem to mostly be the focus, determined to tell their own story, and not let a bunch of old people steal their spotlight. What I might have loved the most was that it felt a lot more “realer” than the prequels. It didn’t feel like a giant CGI fest. It involved actors really running through sand. Real sand!

And sure, I liked Rey. This series will catapult Ridley into super stardom, I can feel it. I liked the Poe and Finn bromance. I really liked Poe. I liked Poe a lot more than I would imagine for someone who is just a pilot. Damn you irresistible Oscar Isaac. Even the new R2D2 was cool.

I didn’t like Kylo Ren when he took off the mask though. No offense to Adam Driver, who I tend to enjoy in his other films, but the look he had with the long hair made him just feel so un-intimidating. His characteristics, technically realistic, but not currently as BAMF as I had hoped. The storm troopers themselves were better. They had personalities, they could hit targets, they had various weapons, and obviously, one of them gained a conscious.

He does have the most sensical lightsaber at least.

But then. Then there are other things. Things not as good as those first things.

Of course a common complaint is this whole thing just feels like a rehash of events from the original trilogy. Some people would argue they are just a homage or mirror of events. Others will just call it lazy fan service / heavy winking. I am on the latter. This didn’t feel like a completely new movie. I mean, fuck, they already did two Death Stars. This time we have a really really really big Death Star, with similar dumb weak points with even more who gives a shitness.

Not everything is well acted. Some scenes are cringey, some seem forced. The worst scene for me to watch was unfortunately a scene between Fischer and Ford, talking about their old love. Neither seemed to be really into it at that moment (Fisher was unfortunately aloof for every one of her scenes), and it didn’t provide the power that it was striving for.

I think what I hated even more about this film is that it didn’t feel like a complete story. Yes, it is part of a trilogy. Yes, trilogies should have an over arcing plot and goal that is being worked towards. But each film in a trilogy needs to have its own beginning, middle, and end, and not leave us with almost literal cliffhangers. The ending to TFA reminded me of the ending of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which pissed me off so much I still haven’t seen At World’s End. Will I see Episode VIII? I have to, it is my job, but I will go in on a slightly sour note.

In case I wasn’t clear, this film felt like it wanted to set up the trilogy and only hint at what is to come, instead of letting that come naturally through its own story.

TFA is an entertaining movie and one people can enjoy again and again, but it is not movie of the year material when it comes down to all of the bigger elements. I have hope for the future films.

As a side note, I enjoyed a few other things. Like Fisher’s daughter having a small role, and you may recognize her from Scream Queens. It is hilarious that Isaac and Driver are both in this film, when they were last together they sung with Justin Timberlake about not wanting to go to Outer Space. I hope JT is given future consideration for a small role.

And finally, there was a mother fucking reference to Clerks. Clerks, which made many references to Star Wars. Randall was wrong. He said that the average storm trooper does not know how to install a toilet, and that they’d have to hire independent contractors to make the Death Star. But damn it. Those storm troopers do have jobs. (Spoiler)? Finn worked in fucking sanitation!

Westerns! According to Spielberg, Super Hero movies might soon go the way of the Western. Everywhere, and then rarely. K, thanks Spielberg.

All of this is irrelevant to Bone Tomahawk, which is a new western (definitely not a super hero movie). It was also independently released, you can tell, because it wasn’t even rated. Ooh, a Non Rated Western? That has to be intentional. There has to be some fucked up shit in there. You know, NC-17 rated stuff.

What will it be? Violence? Sex? The word “Cunt?” Who knows! Only the one with the best facial hair I imagine.

Fuck. I hope that is real and I hope all future movies let him keep it.

Set in the vague past, we need to talk about a small town out in the West with your standard group of people. We have Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell), whom has lived a good life of protectin’ people and growing facial hair. He has a “Back Up Deputy”, Chicory (Richard Jenkins, who I didn’t recognize at all until writing this review), and older fella who likes to talk. Like old people.

They got a rich guy, John Brooder (Matthew Fox) with no family, a fear of Indians, and a lover of the ladies in the town. Arthur O’Dwyer (Patrick Wilson) is also relatively wealthy, but he has a broken leg, and is being tended by mostly from his wife, Samantha (Lili Simmons), who is basically a nurse.

But when a drifter (David Arquette) comes to their town, their life begins to get a bit rougher. They lock him in the local jail, not sure if they should trust him. Next thing they know, the drifter, Samantha, and Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) are missing. Apparently they were taken by an angry Indian tribe, nicknamed the Troglodytes, because they live in caves. No other tribes will interact with them because of their cruelty and cannibalism.

Well, not in Hunt’s town. He is able to gather a crew of men (the four mentioned!) to get them back, despite injuries and oldness. That is the only thing they can do, lest a wife and a friend get eaten up. That is not a pleasant way to go.

Also with one scene from Sid Haig.

There are rag tag groups, and then there is this group. Rejectag.

Bone Tomahawk is like a slow fuse. A long, slow fuse. Bone Tomahawk is 132 minutes long and the type of film that is in desperate need of a better editor. I can imagine at least 20 minutes of material being cut out to make the story just a smoother experience for everyone involved. I am not talking 20 minutes of beautiful scenic shots, I just mean actual character conversations.

The first scene is great, tense, gets you the mood. Then it takes a long time before people get kidnapped and their journey begins. An incredibly long time. Enough time for me to forget about the intro completely.

The journey itself was fine. The four actors provided nice conversations and good back stories, but still I figured more things would happen outside of the one or two issues they encountered pre-Troglodytes.

The action was very brutal however. A lot a talk about how one death scene was the craziest of the year, and I think most everyone who watches it will feel uncomfortable throughout it. Straight up medieval torture. The other shootouts are not long and drawn out, just real people blasting in holes in people where no one can really be a hero.

Bone Tomahawk could have been an excellent western. It just needs to trim a lot of fat first to get ready for bikini season.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

Bond Bond Bond. In case you missed my other reviews on the subject, I have no craps about Bond growing up. My parents didn’t care, so I didn’t get him in my impressionable youth phase, so the only Bond films have had Daniel Craig at the helm.

Casino Royale was okay, Quantum of Solace was terrible, Skyfall was interesting, and now we have Spectre. The internet tells me that the wiki page has spoilers on the subject and the trailer gives too much away. Apparently Spectre is a reference to an older Bond villain from a past film and they are redoing it. I think?

The good news is, I won’t have to compare it to something decades ago. Like always, I will just look at this film and see if I like it as a stand alone action spy film. And for those who are counting, this is the FIFTH Spy movie of the year. After Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and of course, Spy. Strangely enough, the other 4 were all good movies. This might be the best year of Spy film ever recorded. Assuming the grand daddy of spy films can end the streak with a bang.

I’m sure this is just a metaphor.

Do you remember the last three films? Because you will need to. You especially need to know that M (Judi Dench) died in the last movie, and now there is a new M (Ralph Fiennes). The 00 program is potentially going to get shut down, what with half of their building destroyed in the last program and all. They have a new commander, who we will call C (Andrew Scott), who is going to bring all of the British agencies together and more transparent.

Bond (Daniel Craig) don’t give a damn. He opens the movie in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead, killing an assassin and a few other people who planned on blowing up a stadium! This doesn’t help his cause, and he gets house arrested in London for the time being, complete with GPS nanobot tracking in his blood. But like I just said, Bond don’t give a damn. He was told to kill the assassin, Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), by M (dead one) herself! She sent him a video from beyond the grave to get it done, should she die. So of course he followed orders.

However, in killing Sciarra, he stumbles upon a large and secret organization calling itself Spectre. His only clues involve using Sciarra’s wife, now widow, Lucia (Monica Bellucci) to find the organization and find The Pale King who is also involved in their bad evil guy plans…somehow.

Spectre is led by the mysterious Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) who seems to know an awful lot about Bond. We also have returning favorites, Q (Ben Winshaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and Tanner (Rory Kinnear). Also returning is Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) from the first two films, and introducing his daughter, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). And of course Dave Bautista as scary intimidating no talking killer, Hinx.

This is…also a metaphor? Is Bond getting religious?

Spectre is not what it is hyped up to be. Heck, if you look at my reviews for the other spy movies that came out this year, you will see that they all earned higher marks, making Spectre, technically, the worst spy film of the year. The good news is that it is still at least okay or average and not complete shit.

Here is what is wrong with the film. Bellucci is used in like one scene, and never seen from again. Most of the actors don’t seem to be giving it their all. They really forced the love interest in this film, none of it felt believable and trying to make it a for sure thing is just lazy writing. A lot of lines I couldn’t even understand, due to mumbles or louder sound moments, allowing me to miss jokes and important plot points. There are plot twists, technically, but everyone you can see coming from miles away in the first 20-30 minutes.

But most of my complaints revolve around Waltz and his villain. First of all, Waltz is normally fantastic, but again, his character was always reserved and never felt scary or intimidating. His character also felt like he was barely in the film until the end. We needed a lot more of him for him to reach his true big bad scary levels. Most Bond fans know everything about the villain already, as there is only one notable Spectre leader. However when the reveal occurs, it is also mumbled quickly and then ignored. So for a non serious Bond fan, it does nothing, and for the serious ones, well, they knew it was coming all along.

They connected the villain from this film to the last three, but it all felt shoe horned, offering only a quick explanation and then moving on. More details would have helped understand the bad guys motivations, outside of the vague backstory they gave him. The villain also had a cool brain altering needle that would just take out important functions for whoever is getting tortured. Well. Bond had two pricks, and basically everything that was said would happen, did not. What the hell even was the point?

And the ending itself felt forced and dare I say, heavy handed.

Not saying there weren’t moments I didn’t like. I loved the intro, both in Mexico City (which opened with a very long shot), and the credits, with all the octopus imagery. Q and M were good. The Rome car chase, the train fight scene, and the plane ridiculousness were all very entertaining and well shot. Classic Bond moments from them all.

For some reason, Happy Madison is developing a bad rep. Adam Sandler‘s production company has been around for awhile and has brought in such classics like, Jack and Jill and Grown Ups 2! Hell, just this year we already got Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.

With such a rich pedigree, how does a company like that get hated on? Hell if I know.

And then there was Pixels, their third film of this year, and one I thought would be completely animated given the posters. Whoops. I obviously figured it out before I watched it, but damn, I don’t think I have ever been fooled like that before. Sure, it could be loosely based off of a Futurama episode, but that was a cartoon, so everything is fair game.

Unless they wanted a giant Mickey Mouse here, then they’d have been fucked.

Brenner (Sandler) was a big deal, in 1982. He was the master of the local arcade, able to see the patterns in the games, creating high score after high score. Hell, he entered into the national arcade tournament and made it all the way to the finals. He lost though to Eddie (Peter Dinklage), a cocky son of a bitch though, because Donkey Kong has some real random elements to it, so he can’t quite figure it out. Oh well, it didn’t ruin his life.

After all, 33 years later, he is working for what constitutes a Geek Squad like company, installing technology in rich big houses. Oh hey, and his best friend, Cooper (Kevin James) ended up as president (married to Jane Krakowski too). But he is seen as a buffoon. Who gives a shit though, because Aliens are about to attack!

Oh yeah, there was a third friend, Ludlow (Josh Gad), who was pretty good at games too, but became a conspiracy nut. And looks like he was write about aliens at least!

The strange thing about these aliens is they are attacking using what looks like arcade games from the early days. You see, after the tournament, they sent digital copies of the games and a lot of pop culture items into a time capsule into space. And alien race took the games as a challenge and built giant replicas of these games to attack the Earth. Each side will only have “three lives” so the first to “win” 3 of these attacks, wins overall. If Earth wins, they leave, if Earth loses, everyone dies. You know where this is going: losers from the 1980’s have to save the day!

Also starring Michelle Monaghan, Matt Lintz, Sean Bean, and Brian Cox.

I’ve had a nightmare like this before. I was playing a real life centipede, but I had no ammo.
Basically insects just fell on me from the sky.

Maybe its the nostalgia, maybe the cool effects, or maybe Dinklage giving his impression of the guy from King of Kong, but Pixels wasn’t super terrible. I know everyone around me said it was bad and they hated it, but I also know they went in ready to rage on it.

Pixels definitely had its moments, but the best parts were the clever ways they “fought” the various levels that totaled the many cities around the world. Having Pac-Man terrorize NYC as they chased him with cars? Come on, that’s clever.

There are unfortunately some lamer elements to the film. Having a cheating subplot? Waste of time, and ruined some of the fun. Q*bert? Fuck Q*bert. That mostly felt like an annoyance more than anything. Creepy suggestion that a woman can be a trophy? Well, you know.

But overall for the most part, Pixels was entertaining. It could have had more fun real life battles instead of an all out attack at the end to cameo in games. If we got even more in depth levels, it would have been great. It was like an advanced Nick Arcade. Just one that probably should have gone for the PG-13 rating, since it probably didn’t deserve PG at all with some of the jokes and language thrown in.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

I am happy to say that I was able to go into Sicario with a blind eye. I knew nothing about the plot and I was happy about that fact. Hell, when I first saw the cover and name, I just assumed it was some random horror film.

But what I was unable to avoid was the hype train. The hype train drove through my city like a…well, train. Praise from all sides about the acting, directing, cinemetography, plot, you name it, people loved it.

That sucks. Now I went into the film expecting greatness. The important note here is that I did, in fact, go into the film. I was supposed to see 99 Films this night. I convinced myself otherwise, to avoid the free pre-screening, and pay my hard cash money to see the movie so I can review it and compare it to its hype. I might have had to wait until a DVD release if it wasn’t super hyped, and who the hell knows when that would be. I can’t miss out on potential Oscar greatness for Andrew MotherFucking Garfield!?!

Some say Garfield is living his post-Spider-Man life as an immigrant on the run from the law.

Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is an FBI agent living in Arizona and she is pretty dang good at her job. She is currently working on a string of kidnappings in the area by a Mexican Cartel lord. The guy pretends to be a legitimate business man, but they all know he is running the gangs secretly and taking orders from Mexico. Kate and her partner, Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya), also find out that parts of the house were rigged to explode. Well fuck. These assholes are going to start booby trapping their hideouts to smuggle people places. This means every future job just got that much more dangerous and things really really suck.

But have no fear, every day American citizens. The government is on the case!

Kate is hand picked to join a larger, inter-department task force, lead by the CIA. She doesn’t know a lot about the mission. Just that it is lead by an asshole, Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who only slightly works or the CIA, and his mysterious friend, Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), someone who isn’t even American, nor is he CIA. He is a “consultant.”

Next thing Kate knows, she is whisked away to El Paso. She was told the overall mission of the task force was to bring own the kidnappings and drugs in that area. To actually hurt the cartel from the top and not through their lackies.

What she didn’t know is how many laws would be broken in the process. Not including murder, crossing borders, torture and kidnapping. Lovely. What’s a moral girl gonna do in a situation like that?

Also with Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, Maximillia Hernandez, and the best Miami Spy, Jeffrey Donovan.

You can’t fool me with your hipster glasses and fake mustache. I know it is you, Michael Weston.

Sicario was one of those perfect movie experiences. Outside of the two dudes who literally had phone calls during the showing. This is what I get for going to a non-screener, non-drafthouse like setting.

Why was it perfect? Sicario was like a slow burning wine. It was dark, realistic, slow, beautifully well shot, great characters, tense moments, and with a bit of moral ambiguity. Not a lot, but a bit. Someone should let me know if what I said about wine makes any sense, because I don’t know anything about wine, but the saying seemed natural enough.

Acting on all fronts were great. We got Brolin being a dick, pretty standard. But the obvious and clear stand outs come from Blunt and Del Toro. Blunt has been having a heck of a career with her last few movies. She seems to always give it her all and seems to be getting even more dramatic roles in the future thanks to it. Blunt gets to play our law abiding character who doesn’t know what really goes on, the one the audience gets to relate to.

Del Toro isn’t introduced until later in the film, but by the end he definitely becomes a true co star and almost another main protagonist. I once had a friend who said he would watch anything with Del Toro in it. But that was in 2010 and he was trying to justify being interested in The Wolfman. I knew he was in a lot of good movies, but I wasn’t a megafan. But hell, this is the type of performance that could make someone a megafan. His character is very rich and the movie does a nice job of slowly unraveling his mystique. He is one of the most BAMF characters in film this year, while at the same time you never really know if you are supposed to be cheering for or against him.

I wouldn’t be a good reviewer if I didn’t further talk about the cinematography. Denis Villeneuve likes pretty movies and he wants your eyes to be ecstatic. You’d know that if you saw his recent movies, Enemy and Prisoners. That is why with this film and Prisoners he used the legendary Roger Deakins to set up his shots. So much attention to detail was put into every frame, the only thing that could ruin it would be mutilated bodies and dead nudity.

Oh.

Yeah. Some of that is in here too I guess.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.