Tag: Harrison Ford

Illumination entertainment keeps putting out movies, and they keep remaining less than stellar and below average, sometimes even bad and horrible. They rose to fame with Minions and forgot that if they want to compete with the big boys they need good stories, not just retreads of old movies.

The first Secret Life of Pets was basically just Toy Story, but with pets, and more violence to make it worse. Fun.

And in between the movies, we had all the bad Louis C.K. stuff, after they already announced The Secret Life of Pets 2! Oh no, will they recast the dog or replace him completely? They went with recasting. And they must have focused entirely on the recasting, because they couldn’t even come up with a single good story for this sequel to exist, with technically limitless possibilities.

Just dogs doing dog things.

Max (Patton Oswalt, a change!) and Duke (Eric Stonestreet) are now good pals, living together, being great. But there is going to be a change in the house. An addition??? Yes, a baby. Something that changes their lives, but something Max feels very protective over. And before the kid can go to school, they take the dogs to a farm to hang out? To have a vacation, I don’t remember at all.

While Max learns to be a better dog, he leaves a toy with Gidget (Jenny Slate) who has a whole big adventure with cats because of that.

And also Snowball (Kevin Hart), now a nice happy pet, likes to pretend he is a super hero. And by doing that, he has to help save a white tiger from a mean circus guy, which puts them on the run from these scary wolf guys who want the tiger back.

Also starring Harrison Ford, Tiffany Haddish, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Bobby Moynihan, Hannibal Buress, and Ellie Kemper.

Hey, that’s not a real cat. You’re a phony!

What do I mean when I say no single good story? Because this film needed to have three main stories instead, and loosely (read: Badly) bringing them together at the end to pretend this was a coherent thought.

It started off with our leads, but to be honest, the main story seems to really be about Snowball and the tiger. It is the plot that at least sort of brings everything together.

None of these stories on their own are enough to carry this movie. It keeps switching between plots, and honestly, the Max plot just feels like filler, and the Gidget plot has amusing moments, but not enough to be worth it. Hart’s character was the best part of the first film, and so it makes sense for him to have a bigger role, but he was less confident and exciting than the first film, for whatever reason.

I also complained that there was excessive violence in the first film, or at least violence being the solution to the problems. And well, same here. I also complained that we had too many pets driving vehicle ridiculousness, which was a theme for movies that year, and they only sort of did it this time.

Overall, this movie feels like they wanted to just make it a TV series, but were given a bigger budget and put a few ideas together. Gotta rush out those sequels, or else they might have to make more Despicable Me movies!

0 out of 4.

Blade Runner is often considered one of the best science fiction movies ever created, and it came out in the 1980’s. Oh well, back then we had a lot of classic films that people love forever, so what do I know.

I didn’t see it until over a year ago, mostly because I knew that this sequel, Blade Runner 2049 was coming out, and I wanted to make sure I got it. Well, I knew why Blade Runner was considered a great film, but not my cup of tea. I was a bit excited about Blade Runner 2049 as well, because of the director only. After many great films like Sicario, Prisoners, Enemy, and Arrival (one of my top films of 2016), I would watch anything that Denis Villeneuve touches.

So why did I wait so long? I don’t know, because I suck. But I did wait so long, and then it got nominated for boatload at the Oscars. I did watch it before the ceremony, and wrote this review, but wanted to save it for my theme week, where I finally reviewed things I should have definitely reviewed in 2017.

In the future, we will have robots that look like Ryan Gosling!

K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner, not an agent who works for the Men In Black, but I can see why you get them confused. K is a replicant, and he knows he is a replicant, and his job as a Blade Runner is to find older models of replicants. He has to hunt them down, sometimes to kill them, sometimes just to bring them in. I have already almost hit my quota of saying the word replicant!

On a mission, K finds the remains of a replicant child. Like, not one that was created, but one that was birthed out. People didn’t know that replicants could birth replicant children. This is a game changer. Now K is told by his boss (Robin Wright) to find the baby and hide the truth, b ecause if this gets out, people will start warring again.

Of course with a secret this big, different sides are going to come together after this knowledge. Some toe hide it, some to let it out to the public, some to steal the technology for their own nefarious slave making purposes.

And K is starting to question what it means to be a replicant. He wonders if he can deny orders. I mean, he is called a replicant, not a repliCAN, so you’d think he would accept his limitations.

Also starring Ana de Armas, Barkhad Abdi, Carla Juri, Dave Bautista, Edward James Olmos, Harrison Ford, Jared Leto, Lennie James, Mackenzie Davis, and Sylvia Hoeks.

“Wanna know why they call this place the Brown Town?…Racism.”

I said it before and I will say it again. Tron is not a good movie. Tron: Legacy is definitely not a good movie. Avatar obviously wasn’t a good movie. But they were all very pretty movies (for their time). Some both pleasing to look at and to listen to, while offering mostly shitty plots and maybe shitty acting.

Blade Runner 2049 has a shit plot. It is long, not too exciting, not as deep as its predecessor, and a bit convoluted for my tastes. But it is really pretty to look at.

It is visually stunning. Its cinematography is gorgeous. Its choices were so well thought out and given a loving touch that it is hard to look away. Well, it would be if I ever felt engaged. Because the acting was poor, the twists were mostly expected, and it doesn’t feel incredibly original. But it was still pretty to look at.

I don’t really understand how this made best of the year lists for people, maybe they were just blinded by the flashy lights and visuals, or riding the hype of one of their favorite films over the last few decades. But Blade Runner 2049 is all flash, no substance, and an incredible waste of my time.

1 out of 4.

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!

3 out of 4.

I am coming into The Age of Adaline a few months after it hit theaters. This really means that I cannot in good conscious make any jokes about a crossover movie of Avengers: Age of Ultron and this one, which came out roughly around the same time. That would be silly.

So instead I will talk about how little I know about this film. I am literally going in knowing nothing about it, not even who is in the movie. I figured out it was based on a book, probably a popular modern romance.

And hey, not all popular modern romance novels are bad. Sure you got your Twilights, but there is also The Fault In Our Stars! Shit, this is all teenage stuff. I am not as familiar with older adult romance novels.

Given the genre, I hope (like always) I can get a good cry out of it.

My emotions are like this elevator: They look really pretty but they get ignored by the rich all day.

Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) has had an interesting life. Born on New Year’s Day, 1908, she has always had a party for every birthday. And right now she has had 108 birthdays.

But no, she isn’t old. She is young, attractive, and looks like she is around 29. In fact, her body is 29, despite the years around the sun. Due to a freak accident, involving drowning, body chemicals and lightning, somehow she no longer ages. Science, magic, fantasy shit.

So now she has to move every 10 years, or else people get weirdly suspicious. Or if she ever gets too close to someone romantically. That is a huge issue for her, never getting to love again.

Now it is modern day, and of course, someone likes her a lot. Ellis (Michiel Huisman) is rich and is impressed by her intelligence and poise. They like each other a lot. She even gets to meet his family! He has a Momma (Kathy Baker), a sister (Amanda Crew), and a dad (Harrison Ford). The dad of course being someone Adaline had a relationship with over 40 years prior.

Also starring Ellen Burstyn as Adaline’s much older looking daughter and featuring Hugh Ross as the narrator.

“Dad, remember the girl who broke your heart before you met mom?”

I loved the concept of The Age of Adaline, once the movie told me what was going on. Shit, I might have tried to watch it in theaters if I actually knew what it was about.

This is by far the best acting I have seen from Blake Lively. Savages and Green Lantern weren’t great for her, and of course Gossip Girl isn’t known for its great acting. But she is fantastic in this film. So is Harrison Ford, who also has had quite a few stinkers/unforgettable roles lately. Let’s not forget he did Paranoia. In this film he reminded us he was a great actor, which is good news for those dying to see Star Wars VII.

The story was a good one, the acting was good, but the major downfall with this film was its ability to drag. Which is this romance in a nut shell. It is like the rich and prestige, going to fancy dinner parties where people do a lot of small talk, having the same conversations with their friends. That is just the general feeling of the first half of the movie when it is set in modern times. Adaline is worried about being caught, her daughter just wants her to finally live her life, and discovering Ellis. I don’t think it gets truly interesting until she finally meets the dad, and the awkwardness really begins. The awkwardness allows for the best acting in the film and is where Ford starts to shine.

An okay romance, with a decent plot, and some fine acting. But it did not make me cry.

2 out of 4.

Ah, a third movie. The Expendables 3 was rocked with “controversy” a few weeks before its release by having an actual good copy of it released on the internet. DVD or better scan, all the effects in, everything. Not a shitty cam copy. Well, in a day it had over 100,000 downloads, and by now over a million I am certain. They say that the video was stolen or whatever and you know what? I don’t believe it.

There was a lot of negative press on this film because now that there are even more stars in it than before, it is now rated PG-13. The other two films (1 and 2 here) were rated R! That is how an action movie should be! But this one was certain to fail because no one wanted to see a big action movie with lots of stars with toned down action.

So yeah, I think they leaked it themselves and will now blame that leak on bad ticket sales, and only like one person will lose their job.

But at least they are classing it up for this third installment.

The Expendables. Lead by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) still, they are making their current mission to free Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes) from confinement. He was an original expendable, but they eventually locked him up for tax evasion. That is a real life joke right there. But after the mission they use him to do another mission and that is where they find out that Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) is free and out to kill.

Conrad was another original Expendables, but he is a lot crazier and lot more mad at the former members of the groups. So he wants to kill em all. Simple as that. After injuring one of the current crew, Barney vows that he will get him back and make him pay. So he sends away his crew (Jason Statham, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews) because he doesn’t want them to get hurt. Instead he decides to get a bunch of fresh new guys and get them hurt instead!

So he gets his guy who knows guys, Kelsey Grammer, gets his team of noobies (Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Ronda Rousey, Kellan Lutz) to get Conrad! Yeah!

Also starring Harrison Ford as the CIA guy who also wants to take down Conrad, and Antonio Banderas as a former special ops type guy, but is getting older and no one likes him. Also of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jet Li are just hanging around too.

Mel Gibson? Playing a bad guy? That doesn’t fit in with my world view at all.

By far, The Expendables trilogy has to be the most mediocre trilogy I have reviewed on my website. 2 out of 4’s across the board. They don’t even hold equal 2 out of 4s either. The second one is the best, the first one is the worst, and this one is somewhere in between. A lot of the action early on felt shitty, so let’s blame that on the rating.

The first one didn’t know how to be entertaining. This one really didn’t have huge entertaining moments either, outside of the fact that Antonio Banderas was a-freaking-mazing. His character was hilarious and brought a lot of fun to the movie. Without him, it would seriously be a 1 out of 4 dud.

Because lets look at the new guys? Who the fuck are these people? Two of them are just MMA fighters, not action stars. Lutz is the only one who actually has been in technically action movies.

Isn’t that the point of these movies? To bring in action stars together? Gibson was great as a villain. Snipes was underused. Crews, normally the best part, was even more underused, so that was disappointing.

The action was whatever too.

Easily a passable movie, and technically a passable franchise.

2 out or 4.

Hey look, a movie based on a book! You know. Like most movies.

But this isn’t any book. This is Ender’s Game. A very famous sci-fi novel from the 1980s, that is required reading in some/many schools now! So, that can mean a few things. It can mean angry mobs of book fans when the movie of Ender’s Game turns out unfaithful, or it can just mean a buttload of money.

That’s right. Buttload. Not even getting into the personal thoughts and opinions of the author, Orson Scott Card, but there are 20 separate books/collections/short stories that he has published in this story. Ender’s Game was the first one to get published, but it is now like, the middle book. Jeez.

Apparently his games just involve very large octahedra dice.

In the future, shit is all bad. Big alien force came and killed a lot of people, but a hero was able to think on the fly and saved the day for everyone. Hooray!

Well now, almost fifty years later, the alien forces are building again and the threat of a new attack is high. They have begun to train children to become their new generals and commanders. Due to growing up with realistic war video games, they are not as afflicted by things like morals or death or killing. Heck yeah!

Our hero is Ender Wiggan (Asa Butterfield), third born from his family, and taking a stab at joining the academy. Well, he is good. He just has to march through rank after rank, school after school, to be deemed good enough to eventually, finally, maybe, go against an actual alien fleet. But until then, it is really just a series of…games.

Harrison Ford is a commander, Viola Davis some sort of…officer. Abigail Breslin is Ender’s sister, Nonso Anozie a sergeant, and a bunch of other kids are played by Aramis Knight, Suraj Partha, Moises Arias, and Hailee Steinfeld. Hailee, who of course starred in True Grit and was called a supporting actress back then! Whoa.

Yes of course Ben Kingsley is in this movie. Just in the last third.

I decided to sleep on the analysis part of the review, and not write it all in one sitting like usual. After watching the movie, I still had so many questions. Ones I would bring up here, but I can’t spoil them because I am not a dickface.

I am really surprised this movie was under two hours, because it felt a lot longer. Here is why. Most of the movie is Ender training at consecutive harder and harder levels. He has to go through a fleet academy thing, he has a break down, then battle school, then battle school at the next tier, he has a break down, then battle school leading his own group of “soldiers”, then he has another break down, then he has to go to commander school, then another breakdown, then his final test.

Just. So many god damn tiers. It felt long because I knew that even though the beginning felt super rushed, the ending confrontation with the evil bug aliens would also have to be potentially rushed. So it felt like a lot of waiting to me.

Outside of that annoyance, and certain inconsistencies near the end that really had me confused, I did enjoy many parts of this movie. It dealt with emotions and morals that are very important and need to be discussed, but it didn’t delve on them as much as I would have liked. Aka, it was just quick, like a lot of the movie. Nothing really felt dealt with, and I don’t want to wait for another movie for things to be dealt with. Probably won’t happen. It didn’t make a ton of money, and Thor 2 is next week. Sooo, yeah. Probably going to be considered a flop, unfortunately, because acting was good.

I am sure that if I read the book a lot more would make sense. Presumably a lot was left out, and I hate it if I have to read a book to fully understand what a movie is trying to convey.

2 out of 4.

I didn’t know a lot about Paranoia before viewing it. Outside of the trailer, it didn’t have any advertising from what I could tell.

But it did have two great actors in head roles, so there is some amount of hope that it is surprisingly decent.

Hey. That guy looks like a thinner, less strong, less manly, Thor. How weird.

The story centers on Adam (Liam Hemsworth), who works for a big phone company lead by Nicolas Wyatt (Gary Oldman). Adam is leading a small team to help develop a tool for their new phone model, but Wyatt ignores him, causing Adam to lose his temper. Needless to say, Wyatt does not choose their project and fires the whole team.

Adam, despite being in debt with his sick dad (Richard Dreyfuss), decides to use the company expense card to live it up with his former coworkers in a moment of mutiny.

Well, now Wyatt has him on credit fraud. Adam doesn’t want to go to prison, so he will do anything Wyatt asks of him. Even if it means stealing.

Wyatt and his associate Judith (Embeth Davidtz) hook Adam up with a fancy new wardrobe, apartment, and personality, so he can get a job as an executive for Jock Goddard (Harrison Ford), who happens to run the biggest phone company. They are working on a sleek new phone that is said to revolutionize the world, and Wyatt wants a prototype. If he succeeds, he will get his friends (mostly Lucas Till) their jobs back, have money for his dad, and will have job security for the rest of his life.

We also have Amber Heard as a marketing direct and main love interest forAdam, Julian McMahon as a lackie of Wyatt, and Josh Holloway as an FBI detective.

These two are juggernauts in the acting world. I have now used ‘juggernaut’ in a review.

If you watch the trailer, you really don’t have to see the movie. They tell you the entire main plot while also spoiling the main twists as well! Seriously, something is given away in the trailer that doesn’t happen until the final twenty minutes, a major plot point.

Unfortunately, the plot itself is predictable (even without the trailer). Having a predictable plot is bad if you are trying to make a crime/thriller. The acting is also not really anything special. The side plot with the friends who lost their job is nothing more than cringe worthy and a distraction.

But the so-so acting and bad plot are not the worse parts. The worse part comes from the tiny details they did not care about.

These two men are the heads of the two biggest mobile phone makers in the world/country. They have their own unique names and everything. Yet they and their heads of staff are using iPhones. I might have seen a Galaxy S3 in there as well. That is just pure laziness. I wouldn’t have noticed if they didn’t constantly show the phones up close.

It almost seems like they are taunting the viewer. They are taunting us by showing how little they cared about the final product of this movie and it showed.

1 out of 4.

First off, I am a bit disappointed. The movie 42 doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out the question of life, the universe, and everything.

Unless that question is baseball related. That’s right, 42 isn’t about The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but instead baseball, go figure. Not just any baseball story, like the forgettable Trouble With The Curve. This is baseball history! The story of Jackie Robinson, the first black MLB player. Well, technically the first black MLB player in modern, post World War II baseball. After all, Moses Fleetwood Walker played in the MLB for a season in 1884. But after that, sixty years is a pretty long time, with “Negro Leagues” put in place, so Jackie Robinson still turned heads in his debut.

Despite the turned heads, he still didn’t help us answer that dang question… 42 doesn’t focus on Jackie Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) entire life, but instead about 2.5 years of it. But before we get to Jackie, we first get to learn about Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers. If we listen to his reasoning at the beginning, he wants to try something crazy. That’s right, a black man on the Dodgers! Why not, that should increase ticket sales, and he will also do whatever he can to get his team a pennant.

So he picks Jackie from the pile, gets him on their minor league team, and hopes he can kick enough ass to make it on the MLB team, while holding back his anger enough to not let the rampant racism get to him.

This is a true story, we all know he makes it to the team after a year in the minors, and the rest, really is history. We also see a little bit into his relationship with his wife (Nicole Beharie), and I do just mean a little bit. There are other members of his team who all embrace in him different ways, some with petitions (Ryan Merriman), some with open arms (Lucas Black). Some managers didn’t give a shit (Christopher Meloni), and some made it their mission to make his life a living hell (The Phillies) (Alan Tudyk). But that is to be expected from a Philadelphia based team I guess.

This also has the smaller, yet still important, story of Wendell Smith (Andre Holland). He was the the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, but first had to travel with the teams for two years, writing articles about Jackie and his struggles. That means Jackie Robinson was influential on more than just the baseball level, he just chose to end racism through beating the other team’s pitchers and stealing bases.

Oh there is also a John C. McGinley cameo as the radio announcer, dropping classic line after classic line of old timey talk.

Jackie probably thinks I am talking far too much about white people in this review.Speaking of white people, I guess Branch Rickey was pretty dang important to this story, but no one really talks about him in popular culture. The filmmaker makes sure you know how much of this all falls on his shoulders, and how it would not have happened (so soon) without him. Yep, this just ends up being another civil rights movie where white people are the saviors. Just like The Help and The Secret Life Of Bees. This literally keeps happening in film, and it is kind of annoying.

Even though in this example it might be true, it is still frustrating to see that it is focused on so heavily just to sell more tickets.

I loved Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. I am glad they went with a relatively unknown actor for the role, because that was one of my bigger problems with the movie Ali.

Overall, 42 is a feel good inspirational movie and it succeeds at that level. There is some intense emotion in here, but it still ends with everyone smiling by the end. It could have dealt with a lot more of his life, but hey, after his first year, he wasn’t the only guy able to make the switch. He was a great athlete, and this is an acceptable (if not entirely accurate) portrayal of his life. I personally still left the theater happy, despite any real issues.

 

3 out of 4.

Extraordinary is one of my favorite words. Especially if you say it for real, and not the shortened way (Extrordinary). Extra. Ordinary. That means beyond ordinary. It means AWESOME.

Well, for Extraordinary Measures, I figured it would be about spies or secrets or government or something. I mean. Look at the cast! Nope. It is a feel good movie about curing diseases. Damn it!

Well, at least we might get some hxc science.

Brendan Fraser plays high up not CEO but business guy who does something. What does he do? Not important. He leaves that job in the movie. But it has nice health insurance. That is good, because out of 3 children, the last two have Pompe disease. Which means something, but just picture kids in electrical wheelchairs, with a fatal disease that means they probably wont make it to 10.

But when the doctor tells him that his two children will both probably die within a year, him and his wife, Keri Russell, freak out. But Brendan freaks out more, leaves working during an “important meeting” and flies out to Nebraska to find Harrison Ford, MD. Ford is a better theorist than he is a scientist, and he believes he knows how to help cure Pompe disease. But he’d need money, and it will take awhile. Brendan says he an get him that money in a month (half a million dollars!).

Well, he only gets $90k. But that is way better than expected. So Ford, grumpy old Ford, says they will have to start their own business and lab, get money from investors, to work on this. But he needs a CEO to do it, and even though there are plenty more people qualified than Brendan, none of them would have the same drive that he has (You know. Trying to save TWO kids). So he quits his job on a gamble. Alan Ruck (who has one scene) tells him it is crazy, but you know one, you have to be crazy sometimes.

So the movie tells of the tale of them trying to get funds, trying to rush science, and do whatever it takes, even if it means their pride have to take a bashing, to find and develop a cure. For added guilt, Coutney B. Vance is a friend of theirs, who also has two children with the disease.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Alive.”

So, this is a feel good movie, based off of the real story. So here are some spoilers. Yes, they find a “cure”. Or at least one one that if administered to infants can get rid of it, but one given to older children can get rid of the dying thing (not the whole, cant walk and etc thing). Yes, the children are still alive today (Posted Jan 26, 2012, for anyone reading this in the 2030s or whenever in the future). Yes, pharmaceutical companies are bitches. Also, no cows were harmed in this movie.

I wasn’t sure if Ford was the best choice to play scientists looking to start his own biotech company. Because he just seems super old. But hey, its Fords movie, so he will be a big role if he wants to! Fraser didn’t entirely mess up the movie either. His goofiness was appropriate, and it seemed like he really cared for these fake, not really Pompe looking kids of his. But everything is expected, and really, nothing too different about this movie and other extraordinary measure like movies.

2 out of 4.

I assume most of you while growing up (if you were male at least), played some form of cowboys vs indians with your fiends. Why not? Violence is fun, and team sports are fun. Of course there is a lot of other versions of this game, Cops vs Robbers, pirates vs ninjas, terrorists vs anti-terrorists or even Texas vs Mexicans.

Cowboys & Aliens tries to take the rivalry concept a step further, by having a clearly more advanced side (instead of relatively even sides (ignoring pirates vs ninjas (go pirates) ) ). Also technically this could just be a rewording of Texas vs Mexicans, but that came out after this movie, so it isn’t thievery.

Picture: Not a fair fight.

The movie opens with Daniel Craig lying in the desert, alone, and thankfully fully clothed. Sure, he doesn’t remember anything, and he has a weird device on his arm, but at least he has clothes. Eventually he finds a town, and apparently he is a wanted outlaw. Despite still being confused, turns out he can kick an ass or too, assuming that ass is male. Because out of no where Olivia Wilde fucks him up (with a cheap shot) and he gets thrown in jail.

At the same time, far away, Harrison Ford is all upset about missing workers and dead steer. Bright lights? Sounds like bullshit to him! He goes to the town though hearing that Craig is there, and he wants to punish him himself, as he stole his gold! Conflict happens in the town, fighting over prisoners. But then! Bright lights (See above picture) and explosions! Thankfully his mysterious arm attachment can create its own booms, and they don’t get obliterated or all captured.

They make a posse to go get those aliens (try to follow their tracks), to free the hostages and you know, figure out what the hell is going on. Oh yeah, Sam Rockwell plays a doctor too, and I am pretty sure this is the only movie where he doesn’t dance.

But how was it? Visually it was good. Nice CGI, nice desert contrast to go with the explosions. Craig and Harrison both go through character transformations in the film, so by the end you like both people, so that is good. Olivia Wilde felt out of play the whole movie though. Seriously, if you looked at a picture of all the cast and her, you’d just assume she was an alien.

Or at least the nakedest one.

Plot is very straight forward, but I didn’t find it engaging enough. Sure, I would have liked better answers for some things. I believe I am told why they are there, and why they captured some humans, but that why isn’t explained at all. Just makes them seem like a nuisance. There is a lull in a lot of the action scenes with aliens, because there are other threats out there (Indian tribe, the outlaw gang) etc, but nothing between them really escalates or feels threatening, because we also know there is damn aliens out there! People won’t kill other people if they can help fight aliens, just a fact.

I thought most of the acting was bad. The realest people to me were random extra outlaw members. The story overall never grasped my full attention and care, so although I thought some parts were cool, it fell flat for me in a lot of other places.

2 out of 4.