Tag: Michael B. Jordan

Something surprising to me is that there are only six Tom Clancy films out there, with the first one being The Hunt for Red October in 1990. I have seen only one of them. I saw the last one before Without Remorse, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, which I remember almost nothing about.

There are a lot of books by Tom Clancy, and they all have these same characters. And based on what I have seen in this film and in the last one, I still have no desire to watch any more of them, and certainly never read one of the books. A lot of pew pew spy action thrillers I guess. I am sure everyone get betrayed a dozen times and somehow gives a lot more bullet deaths than they end up receiving. Huge body counts. Catastrophic deaths.

This is all an assumption. Hell, maybe the first one was really tame.

But Without Remorse is going straight to amazon, probably because they have a successful Tom Clancy show, and now they want successful movies as well. Make money while you can, that is my motto.

Also to avoid old shrimp. That’s another motto. John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) is a Navy Seal, part of an elite team of soldiers, and is good at his job. He is good at the killing of bad guys and terrorists, while protecting the innocents, and going in and out of a job quickly with minimum damage. So, a normal movie soldier of a seal. You know.

Well, after a mission, that was quite a success, it turns out it secretly wasn’t a success after all! Months later, his team is assassinated by Russian soldiers on American grounds. They go after John too, but they can only get his pregnant wife (Lauren London), as John survives. A Russian attack on American soil is a pretty big deal. Especially if it was ordered by a Russian operative (Brett Gelman), who they thought was dead. Ahh, America fooled again.

Now John is going to have to go on a secret revenge mission, get them back without starting a new world war. He has to make them pay for killing his friends and PREGNANT WIFE, you know?

Also starring Jodie Turner-Smith, Guy Pearce, Jacob Scipio, Jack Kesy, Jamie Bell, and Todd Lasance.

A man in a hand is worth a gun in the other.

I don’t think I have ever cared less about the death of a fictional pregnant woman than in this movie. I am not saying she deserved it or anything. But we barely get to know her as a character before it happens. And it happens early in the movie. After that, there is some grief and determination to get revenge, but it isn’t too believable. Jordan is too good of an actor to not have him focus on that anger grief sadness more and use it to tear the bad guys a new one.

Okay, the bad guys are teared into a new one. But it feels plastic. It feels like a generic action movie, because that is all that Without Remorse ends up being. A generic action film. I guess it being based on a Tom Clancy novel should have given that away. Not that I have first hand experience with any of the source material, like I already said, but lets go on and assume the plots are normally weak.

Despite Jordan being a good actor normally, there is little here outside of the standard action. Is there conspiracy twists? Sure. But they don’t make things more interesting. I don’t care about things setting up for future films when they can’t bother to get the first one right.

Without Remorse has action in a lot of dark places, so you’ll get to use your imagination, alongside many bullets for those who just like the action to be mindless while pretending it is more than mindless. (Note, this is not more than mindless). The people excited for this movie due to the previous ones or the books will probably like it as well, let’s leave it at that.

1 out of 4.

Without a doubt, Fahrenheit 451 is one of those revered classic novels. It is one of the first dystopian future novels that are now clogging our bookstores, trying to maintain relevancy, and it warned of a specific type of future.

Literary teachers of course loved it, because it talks about a world that is anti-books and free thought, and they want their students to read books! I know I enjoyed it in middle school, and I was able to see parts of the (even old by that time) Fahrenheit 451 movie from the 1960´s.

And it makes sense as a movie. It makes sense for their to be a modern update. So I was excited to find out HBO was giving us a new adaptation. And again, it seems appropriate given the current political landscape.

I couldn´t find a natural way to fit this in, but here is Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, by Rachel Bloom, before she got TV show famous.

That song and this movie are HOT!

In the near future, books are OUTLAWED. Why? They are confusing in nature. One person´s text can contradict another. Who knows what to think? It causes confusion, dissent, anger, and separates the population. Instead, the government should let everyone know what they need to know.

This film takes place in Columbus. The firemen of this day and age don´t put out fires, they start them. They are basically celebrities, destroying dissent and burning books if they find a stash, but at this point seeing a real novel is very rare. The world is very digitized. Not only do they have TV´s that are entire walls, they have the news feed on the side of buildings. Everyone is connected to the grid, to the system, and they have three books full of emojis available only.

Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan) is an up and coming fireman, pretty famous in his community. The crowds love him! He is probably going to be the new fire chief someday, replacing his mentor, Captain Beatty (Michael Shannon).

But when they come across an extremely large stash of books with a stubborn woman, the likes that has never been seen in years. And when she sacrifices her life in the fire in front of the whole world, reciting a strange word, it puts together events that will change the life of…well, at least a few people.

Also starring Sofia Boutella, Saad Siddiqui, Dylan Taylor, and the voice of Cindy Katz.

Flashy techno lights, to make you know its the future.

As a movie reviewer, I try of course to keep the review to just the film if it is based on a book. I try to not read the book before hand. Unfortunately, I have read Fahrenheit 451. Fortunately, I also read it like 15-20 years ago and that was the last time so my memory of the film is very faint and superficial.

I have no idea how much of this film is based on the novel, how much is new due to coming out 60 years later to reach the modern audience or what. I do, however, still have some tastes available to me. And I recognize a bad movie when I see it.

The acting from the two Michael´s isn´t bad, it is just the whole story feels bad. It feels unbelievable and I am never drawn into it. It feels like a movie and not a tragic direction our country is heading towards. A very simplistic and basic retelling of an actual frightening future.

The story could still work, but it needs to be more fleshed out. These feels like a spark notes version of a story and never goes in depth. It needs more fine tuning. It probably should go further from the source material to make it believable.

Either way, I am trying to forget seeing this adaptation as I type, I should be done soon.

3 out of 4.

In 2017, I was a bit disappointed with the superhero genre. It was the first time in awhile that a superhero film didn’t make it in my best of the year list. And that includes Logan, which I gave an average rating to.

As for Marvel, in 2017 they gave the average Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the decent Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the funny Thor: Ragnarok, but none of them really blew me away.

Black Panther I was really hoping would start the year off strong. I loved the character for years, he was amazeballs in Civil War, and for all intents and purposes, it looks like they took a lot of care to ensure this one would turn out right. To not be another Catwoman, if you know what I mean.

And somehow it exceeded most of my already high expectations.

Ah sweet! A duel between two panther orphans.

Days after the bombings that took out King T’Chaka (John Kani), and all that Civil War nonsense has ended, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) has returned home to his country of Wakanda to ascend the throne and become their leader.

And you know what? Things are sure going swell for Wakanda. Minus the death of their ruler and some missionaries, they are still prosperous as fuck, living mostly peacefully in their walled off community. They are rich, they have crazy good technology, all thanks to luckily living where Vibranium deposits are, from a meteor a long, long time ago. Yep, it pays sometime to be lucky, I guess!

The Queen (Angela Bassett) is ready for her son to rule, and his younger sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright), is a tech genius, helping beef up his Black Panther outfit. And there is a former love interest, in Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), a warrior champion of one of the many tribes who believes they need to be helping all of Africa, not just themselves.

Unfortunately, things are about to be not so peaceful in Wakanda. A combination of meddling white people (Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis), both good and bad, and the sins of their fathers, are about to change the way Wakanda is seen by the world and by the tribes who inhabit it. Because Wakanda is about to unknowingly welcome home a former son and member of the royal family back to their fold (Michael B. Jordan), and he has his eyes set on the throne.

Also starring Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Florence Kasumba, and Forest Whitaker.

Ah sweet! A set of dual panther blasters.

Good news! Kilmonger is officially one of the best Marvel villains to date. You know why? Because he is a bad guy with realistic motivations, one who doesn’t speak in cliches, and arguably, he is right. He is right! Not necessarily in the methodology he ends up employing with his drastic measures, but he has justifications that just make sense. He is correct that Wakanda should branch out more and that it is totally fucked up what happened to him his past. He legitamately deserved some amount of revenge.

Okay, okay, I will not talk only about how great Jordan is and his character. The rest of the cast really shines too. I want way more Shuri and certainly more M’Baku. This movie celebrates its diversity in ways we haven’t seen in a blockbuster in almost forever, and that diversity shines brightly. There are vivid colors without relying on the Doctor Strange spectacles, and thrilling fight scenes without excessive explosions.

Hell, the best part about the climatic fight scene (besides the obvious repercussions as they are happening and the crowd pleasing moments) is that it for the most part took place in the open, during the day. It was well lit, we could see it all, and it wasn’t hiding behind quick camera changes and bad choreography.

There are some easy things to nitpick, sure. Like Vibranium becoming a catch all wonder cure. Like the excessive amount of violence involving stabbing items without a lot of consequences from those actions. Like this film following the general strategy of “Intro Marvel Film” means good guy fights evil version of himself.

But it does a lot of things right, from a cultural stand point, from visual stand points, from the plot, to the acting, to the action, and to the scale. It is a strong bar to set for Superhero films this year, and one that Marvel is hoping to actually surpass in just a few months.

4 out of 4.

Dun dun dunnnnn. Dun DUN DUNNNNNNN. That is my impression of the main Rocky theme, you’re welcome.

I first saw Rocky about 5 or 6 years ago. I was pretty late to the game. But I liked it for what it was. I didn’t see any of the other films until this summer, in preparation for Creed. And since I never had to review any of those films for the site, here are reviews of 2-6.

Rocky II was hilarious, because half of the movie was Sylvester Stallone rambling about whatever comes to his head. He clearly is showing he has severe brain damage and Adrian apparently thinks his mental handicap is cute.

Rocky III gave us Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. It was okay, gave us the best montage fun with Apollo and Rocky though.

Rocky IV was my most quoted film, while I had only seen the fight between Creed and the Russian. It had a fantastic ending, where Rocky single-handedly defeated Communism and Robot Boxers.

Rocky V was steaming shit. What a terrible movie. Why the fuck was this made?

Rocky Balboa was 16 years after Rocky V, a sadder tale about an old man coming out of retirement to prove he wasn’t a pushover. And well, I honestly didn’t like it at all. Was a very different tone and was night time half the film, and just mehhhh. What a waste.

Kind like my thoughts when I saw that MJB was starring in the new Fantastic Four. What a waste.

And now there is Creed. They might have called it Rocky VII, but that one if it ever exists will have to be called Adrian’s Revenge.

Turns out Apollo wasn’t faithful. He had an affair out of wedlock and Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) was born. However, he wasn’t born until after Apollo died in the ring, so he never had a chance to meet his father. His mother died when he was young, so he was passed around the foster care and juvie system, always getting into fights, until about 10 or 11. That is when Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad) found him. She, somehow, found out about the affair and the kid, and since she heard the news, she wanted to adopt him so he can learn about his father and grow up in the proper lifestyle.

Now years later, Adonis is fighting in Tijuana, Mexico, trying to be a boxer like his dad, but in secret. Fuck real jobs, real responsibilities. He just wants to punch people in the face.

He wants to punch people so badly, but no one will give him a chance in LA. So he heads to Philadelphia. He goes to see Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). Rocky is old, managing a restaurant, with no real family to worry about. He doesn’t want to. But he realizes that he might be the only real father figure that Adonis will ever have.

Even better, he doesn’t want people to know he is Creed’s son. He wants to become a fighter on his own, not by legacy. That’s good news. Fuck it. Let’s train the kid.

Oh and Adonis of course meets a lady. Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a soulful musician who is also slowly losing her hearing.

Also featuring Ritchie Coster, Tony Bellew, Graham McTavish and Wood Harris as various fighters/coaches. And a dude who looks a hell of a lot like Edward James Olmos. I have no idea who he is, but he was in the movie a lot as their team doctor guy, had no lines, but I couldn’t find out who he was on the IMDB page, because it was very badly laid out order wise. It might be Olmos. It might be a weird cameo.

You might be able to tell by his shorts that someone eventually let’s the name secret out of the bag.

Creed featured four montages. FOUR. Three of them training, and one a fight montage. All of that exists, but we don’t see Michael B. Jordan splashing the dying corpse of Sylvester Stallone. A shame. More movies need playful beach splashing.

In terms of themes and atmosphere, Creed is a bit closer to Rocky Balboa, but it is also a lot more entertaining. The best shot moment was during the “mid film” fight, where the entire thing was one long shot. Multiple rounds, corner talk, the whole shebang. It was wonderful. I figured they would do that for the final fight as well, but we had to settle with the walk from the waiting room to the ring to be the one long shot.

With Creed, they clearly want to turn it into a new franchise, since Stallone can’t possibly un-retire from boxing for the 50th time and the son route didn’t work out. Creed had some nice moments in the fights and I felt appropriate at the ending, but I don’t like a lot of elements as well.

For whatever reason, Rocky himself doesn’t have as much brain damage as he did in Rocky II, and they are making him progressively more and more normal. You wouldn’t expect that with age. SLIGHT SPOILER, but they make it so that Rocky also has a health concern. I won’t say what, I will say that it, again, has nothing to do with brain damage. It feels like an incredibly bull shit side plot, when they have perfectly reasonable and obvious health issues they could have instead brought in.

The back story for Adonis felt a bit shitty too. It seemed like they had to jump through hoops to get the backstory they wanted, again, over complicating it. The story was also incredibly inconsistent with Adonis’ feelings. He wanted to make it big without using the Creed name to get him by, but instead be a good fighter on his own. Mary Anne also had the same feelings, but apparently they both just figured they should get over it and embrace it, making some of his earlier journey feel a bit dishonest.

Oh well. Some good fights. And Michael B. Jordan was great in it. This should fix his career back up again quite nicely.

2 out of 4.

Is there a more universally hated super hero franchise right now than Fantastic Four? Specifically films with more than one movie. Catwoman, Elektra, Green Lantern are all bad but at least they stopped, and Daredevil redeemed itself with the Netflix series.

But Fantastic Four had two very mediocre films with big name actors, so they had to reboot it many years later or else they would lose the movie rights. Not unlike how the 1994 Fantastic Four movie came to existence. As expected, because people were already angry, the internet did not give Fantastic Four a chance. Every casting decision was scrutinized (The Human Torch being the most famous example), every time they didn’t appear at a con was noted, and when they finally came to a few, they were criticized for their trailer or being later.

It is a sad fate that no matter how good or bad this movie is, it is almost determined to fail because the internet has decided to hate it before giving it a chance. A lot like what happened to The Lone Ranger movie of a few years ago.

“What, do they not know what to do with their arms? This movie sucks based on a picture!” – The Internet

Sometimes when you are a kid, you have a dream for when you get older and it actually comes true. Like when Reed was in 5th grade (in 2007. Yes, the math works out and it indeed was that long ago), he wanted to be the first person to teleport and was already working on a device! He also befriended the slower Ben through his elementary experiments. Now, 7 years later, for his senior year science project, Reed (Miles Teller) has successfully built the device and is able to teleport something away and back! He doesn’t know where, but darn it, it works! And Ben (Jamie Bell) is still there, helping out by lifting things or buying supplies or something.

Needless to say, it draws at least some interest, namely from Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), who wants to offer Reed (yes just reed) a full scholarship to NYC as part of the Baxter foundation. A giant building where he can school, do science, and live. Yay! Apparently Reed had solved an issue they were having for years, so Franklin gets his old team back together, including Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), who is a bit chaotic. He also adds in his adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara) who will build suits for them and his son Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) who has gotten into some trouble and can “build anything.” This is all important, because what Reed has actually done is created a portal to another dimension and another world!

They should totally try to go there. That’d be fun. Hopefully nothing would go wrong, affecting the structural DNA of any of these right out of high school aged individuals. That would be terrible. Also Tim Blake Nelson as our government bad guy, because you need one when science is involved.

“And knowing is half the battle.” – Cobra Commander or whoever is in this picture.

I won’t say the hate on the internet for this film is justified, because most of it came before anyone had a chance to see it. However, they ended up being correct in that the final product was anything but fantastic.

Don’t want to get into source material comparisons, so I will still note that I am bit disappointed that they used a lot of the “Negative Zone” but called it Planet Zero or something, and not by its comic name.

As for the characters, the entire team seemed to lack any real personality. Before the specifics, I should note that I really like Teller and Jordan in most of their movies and Mara was great in House of Cards and Happythankyoumoreplease.

However, for The Human Torch they made him whiny, even having him utter “I’m an adult, I’m old enough to make my own decisions!” to his dad. The few times The Thing/Ben was on the screen, it felt like he was just awkwardly standing off to the side, never understanding what was going on. Reasons to bring him along on the trip were silly and the friendship that was supposed to exist between him and Reed didn’t show up well in the film. Additionally, his voice when he was full on The Thing didn’t seem to fit his mouth well and always seemed jarring.

It feels like they forgot to do anything with The Invisible Girl, outside of having her like music and patterns with some cringe inducing scenes. And Reed never felt like the genius he was hyped up to be, just a kid with lame powers and lame motivations. Dr. Doom himself was rushed near the end. The fight didn’t make a whole lot of sense, because the film had a problem explaining anything that occurred, hoping the audience wouldn’t think too hard by rushing through all the science talk.

The only real chemistry I found believable was between Johnny and Sue storm as adopted brother and sister, which is probably the hardest thing to pull off. Makes one wonder if they forgot about everything else and focused just on their relationship. Somewhat related, their dad also called Victor and Reed “son” at various points in the movie, so at some point he just became everyone’s daddy.

Stretching out this review with a third picture, much like how Miles Teller can stretch out a conversation with witty retort.

The film can be broken down into three parts. A long introduction, which includes getting the powers and training (which also almost put me to sleep). One scene that is more akin to a horror film. Then a short rushed final CGI fueled fight.

Outside of the weak characters, the biggest problem seems to come from the tone. The Fantastic Four group is inherently cheesy. My favorite story about them is actually a short Norm MacDonald sketch talking about how ridiculous their names are. But the tone of the film is going for a darker more serious approach that is popular nowadays. However it never feels dark, it just forced. It is still cheesy outside of the “horror” scene with none of the grittiness seeming to work. It doesn’t help that the film is almost void of any action until the final fight scene, leaving just poor character development science montages to pick up the majority of the run time.

The Fantastic Four reboot might have actually been what we all feared, a cheap and quick film to maintain film rights. I maintain that if they had just brought in Zac Efron as Dr. Doom, this could have been better as a spiritual successor to That Awkward Moment.

0 out of 4.

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

That Awkard Moment at first glance appeared to just be another dumb buddy comedy at the end of January, but then I really looked at the three main actors involved.

Sure, Zac Efron early on was typecasted as a pretty boy who could sing, but he has been in some more serious roles recently, with The Paperboy and Parkland. Also, shut up, I like him a lot in Hairspray. So he isn’t a terrible actor, he just was in some terrible movies early on.

Miles Teller busted onto the scene more recently. First, he was the boy in the very sad Rabbit Hole, then he was the best part of the Footloose remake, the best part in 21 and Over, and starred in the incredible The Spectacular Now. This guy hasn’t made many poor decisions at all.

Finally, we have Michael B. Jordan, who recently wow’d audiences with Fruitvale Station, but was also awesome in Chronicle, Parenthood, and now rumored to be in the Fantastic Four reboot. Not to mention he sometimes sounds like a young Denzel Washington.

All I am saying is, this film might not deserve to get written off so quickly.

But, then again, it might just be another stupid comedy.

The story, it’s a simple one. Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) has recently found out that his wife Vera (Jessica Lucas) has been cheating on him, with her lawyer. Her lawyer is a Morris Chestnut looking motherfucker (when really it is D.B. Woodside, who yeah, looks like Chestnut but is also somewhat famous).

In order to help cheer up their friend, who has been in a relationship for many years, his best buds Jason (Zac Efron) and Daniel (Miles Teller) all agree to stay single for as long as possible now. Because women are evil! Relationships are stupid! And all that other stuff.

Unfortunately at the same time, Jason meets Ellie (Imogen Poots), an intellectual sort who has been trying to make it as a writer. She is different from the rest of the girls on his “roster.” Daniel also realizes that Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis), his forever wingwoman is actually also kind of special, so they begin a secret relationship. At the same time, Mikey is trying to patch things up with Vera, despite her cheating ways.

Yeah, some bet, right? Not even a prize or anything. No reason for it.

Bet you didn’t expect to see two shirtless men in this review, did ya?

In That Awkward Moment, the one thing I can be glad they didn’t do is say the movie phrase a lot or make it a recurring theme.

There were some awkward moments, but some of those moments were also incredibly sad and depressing. Although a lot funnier in the first half, it goes hard into the romance angle on the second half. Not fully reaching the RomCom levels or anything, but it is still actually a Romance Comedy.

And the reason why I enjoyed it so much is because of the talent involved. Not just the three guys I mentioned above, but also Poots and Davis. Davis was not as important of a character and hasn’t really been in anything else, but she really played her role well. Poots did a good job (and/or the writer) by not portraying a stereotypical woman character, in a male dominated movie.

The chemistry between the three male leads was also incredible. Being an audience member, I really felt like I was just hanging out on the couch with them and joking around. The bromance was real. Teller played a similar role to his roles in every other movie. I found Efron to show a large emotional range, more than I am used to, especially in the second half. Jordan did good too, despite his character being in the most depressing of the three situations.

What can I say? Talented actors can make a dumb concept movie entertaining and good.

3 out of 4.

Fruitvale Station is the true story of the last day of Oscar Grant’s life in 2009. Who is Oscar Grant and why should you care?

Good question.

This Wikipedia article sums it all up nice and…well in great fucking detail. So much detail. Not an easy read at all.

Basically in an arrest, police officers were being rougher than usual early on New Year’s Day. One of the officer ended up firing a shot into the back of Oscar, killing him later. Thanks to technology, a lot of videos quickly surfaced on the internet, and brought the case to the national spotlight. Then, you know, this movie.

SPOILER. Someone dies in this movie. Side note, this movie is hard to explain. You know what happens at the ending. Hell, if you didn’t read this review, you know how it ends? Why? Because this is how it starts:

Actual footage of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale train station. One of the cell phone cams, about a minute long, a brief altercation, and the shot. Then the movie starts.

This is a pseudo-fictionalized last day for Oscar (Michael B. Jordan). December 31st also happens to be his mother’s (Octavia Spencer) birthday, so a lot of the day is prepping for dinner at her house and then plans in the city for midnight.

He recently lost his job as a butcher, and has gotten back into dealing drugs, but he wants to turn his life around. He has been in prison twice before, but just got out again a few months ago. He has a daughter, with his long term girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz). He has a big family and a nice support network.

Shit, what else do I say? I don’t. He had a rough life, then he got shot. Kevin Durand also made a surprise small appearance as a cop. Not the asshole cop, just one of them.

Plenty of imagery to make sure you got the full emotions out of it too.Some movies are just hard to describe, for sure. And after all, with a movie like this one where you KNOW how it ends, the experience is the entire point. But what kind of point was it trying to make?

Anytime someone dies, it is a tragedy. The death is worse if the age is low (he was 22) and the circumstances unjust (shot in the back during an arrest) and even worsier if it has authority overstepping their bounds. The timing of this movie couldn’t be better, with a different famous death just finishing its trial, with the George Zimmerman / Treyvon Martin case.

This only feels relevant because it is a movie distributed by The Weinstein Company, who are well known for advertising. Aka, the best money spent on advertising is free advertising. Just look at their Bully nonsense.

So I think it is unethical to release this movie around that trial for more money and exposure, but I think the movie itself is worthy of being made on its own merits. I don’t like lumping the two things, because the situations are very very different. I won’t get political, I will end it there.

The movie itself is VERY well acted, especially Michael B. Jordan. Everyone else is fine, but he is the only character basically on the screen 100%. The middle of the film had its boring moments, but that was necessary for the buildup. I think it was strange for them to show the actual footage at the beginning. It really took a lot out for me, since they recreated it at the end of the movie anyways. It seems like it could have been better incorporated somehow. Random scenes had extreme elements of shaky cam, just from walking through a room, or a quick run down a street. Those were annoying, not helpful.

I hope some of the smaller details were actual events. They had nice graphics for every phone call and text he made, all of which are records that could easily be gathered, so it would be nifty if they were the actual texts and phone calls he made that day.

Good movie, sad ending, great acting, some dull parts and questionable advertising. Very excited for Michael B. Jordan to be in more movies, that is for sure, brah.

3 out of 4.

I first heard about this movie before it came out to theaters, a friend of mine saw the trailer and shared it and I was like, whoa, this looks pretty awesome.

I then “forgot about it” in that I could not remember the name. At all. I remembered what it was about. But the name?! I kept confusing it with Project X, not for similar subject matter, but I could imagine a lame title like that for the trailer I saw. It wasn’t until a few days ago when someone suggested I watch Chronicle. I was like, “Chronicle? Never heard of it, let me go to IMD-OH MAN THAT MOVIE!”

I was seconds away from downloading it illegally too, but don’t worry, it came out on DVD/Blu-Ray Tuesday!

Ah, they don’t look worried.

Andrew (Dane DeHaan) is a kid in high school, who is bullied and generally keeps to himself. He lives in a bad household too, where his mom (Bo Petersen) is dying of cancer and his dad (Michael Kelly) beats him and is verbally abusive. Because of this he decides to video tape his life as a self project, so that others can know what he goes through, have the last moments of his mom, etc.

People find it weird. People HATE being video taped, they just assume he is creepy. He is feeling all bad at a party his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell) made him go to, when Steve (Michael B. Jordan) the popular high school president friend of Matt makes him grab his camera to check out something cool. Matt and Steve found a huge hole in the ground that makes weird noises! So of course they investigate it. Well they find a giant blue crystal, weird noises, gives them headaches and nose bleeds, and breaks the camera.

Three weeks later? Oh hey look, telekinesis.

They figure out that it works like a muscle. Gets stronger the more they practice with it, and nosebleeds happen every time they exert too much power. Basic things cause it at first, but eventually these bitches can move cars. And fly! But dissension occurs amongst the ranks, as they realize certain things are bad, but other people don’t like being controlled. They plan to fly around the world together, after they graduation. Maybe visit those Tibet monks.

You know, as long as they don’t start fighting it out all telekinetic power wise, and have people die and shit.

I am just going to leave this here.

In case you didn’t know, this is a “hand held camera” movie, but don’t worry, it isn’t some found footage crap. It is just showing the film through whatever video collecting device was running at the time. Whatever it may be! That three week pause is because he didn’t get a new camera, so we get to avoid the delay of discovering they have powers, straight to them playing with them and figuring out what they can’t do. I didn’t find the camera too distracting either, and it kind of helped out the movie in a lot of ways just feel more realistic.

Matt’s pseudo love interest (Ashley Hinshaw) is supposed to help ground Matt, I guess, who might secretly be a smart guy but afraid to show it or else not be popular? Pretty much that aspect of his character is the only thing I didn’t like. He said a feel philosophical things, but they always felt a bit random to me and I think they threw that aspect into the character without fully defining the why aspects.

But everything after that I loved. The visual effects for this movie were great and like I said, everything just felt super real. Predictable events don’t always mean a bad thing, because even if you know which character is going to turn mean, you don’t know what he is going to do when he IS mean.

4 out of 4.