Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

I’ve watched Harrison Ford play the serial throwback hero Indiana Jones my entire life. My first introduction to Indy was with 1989’s The Last Crusade. This is the third film in the series, and is the one people often argue between being the best or the second best (it’s a contest between Raiders of the Lost Arc and Last Crusade). Next up was Raiders (quite some time later), and eventually Temple of Doom (my least favorite of the original trilogy). In 2008, shortly after I graduated high school, for some reason we got a fourth movie that completely ignored that Indy was 65 years old when the movie was filmed. Instead, it had him do his usual shenanigans (punching Nazis, swinging around on a whip, etc.) and threw in a bunch of CGI and a weak script. To most fans it was a massive misfire and we went along pretending it didn’t exist.

Fast forward 15 years later. Harrison ford is now 80. And, we’ve gotten a 5th Indiana Jones film. You wouldn’t be wrong if you said this sounds like a terrible idea. But, you would also be wrong, as it turns out the movie is actually the most fun anyone’s had with Indiana Jones in a theater since 1989. Yeah, the movie blows Krystal Skull out of the water, and gives Temple of Doom a run for its money on third best Indy Film. It sounds crazy, but, somehow it happened. Here’s what makes the movie work:

1. It doesn’t pretend Indy’s still in his 30s. The fact that Dr. Jones is now as old as dirt plays into everything the character does. He’s a cranky old man. This is what any hero who’s made it to his 80s ought to be.

2. James Mangold directs. This is the guy who directed Logan, Copland, and Identity. The dude knows how to make a good movie. And he doesn’t bring the weird baggage with him that Spielberg would have since he’d feel obligated to involve George Lucas, who just doesn’t have the stuff anymore (Nothing wrong with that. You had a great run, Lucas. No one could say different).

3. Harrison Ford is giving it his all. This may be the most important factor. Or, at least up there close to the top. Ford is fully awake in this movie, and he’s giving it his all. I remember watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in the theater and thinking, “Man, Harrison Ford sure seems like he forgot how to act” while I watched Area 51 employees scrub radioactivity off his body with a push broom and a water hose. That never happens here. I fully buy that he’s an old grumpy man that used to do cool shit when he was younger, but now shuffles between his office, his classroom, and his apartment, and not much else.

4. Indy goes on the adventure out of necessity, not out of desire. Indy’s pulled into the adventure, and the way it’s done makes it believable. Ford’s character never does anything we can’t believe an 80 year old Indiana Jones couldn’t do under the circumstances. They do a great job with this, and it’s exactly what Crystal Skull was missing.

5. Plenty of Practical effects and practical set pieces. Yeah, there’s more CGI here than in all three original Indy movies combined (did CGI even exist back then? Do matte paintings count as CGI, lol?), but there’s less than Crystal Skull, and the CGI is used better here too.

6. The script is solid. No aliens this time, guys. Just the Nazis trying get a relic with magical powers so they can rule the world. You know, classic Indiana Jones stuff.

Loki

I’m currently trying to watch Loki for, I think the third time. It’s…not very good.

Here are the things I don’t like about this show:

• Owen Wilson.

• CGI overload.

• Corny mumbo-jumbo.

Now, I’ll address these things one by one. Starting with Owen Wilson. Man, this guy just isn’t funny. He’s fine at acting in the one way he knows how. He’s the same here as he was in Wedding Crashers in 2005, and every other movie he’s ever done. It’s now 2023. Humor stagnates if it doesn’t evolve with the times. Owen Wilson has not evolved. His delivery, his jokes, they’re the same as they were 20 years ago. It’s just strange to see a not-that-popular comedian from the early 2000s co-lead a Marvel television show. It’s a very weird choice, and it tanks the show for me.

Problem 2: CGI overload. Since COVID, Netflix, and Marvel itself have basically killed what was once the movie going experience in America, we’re now left with a Marvel superhero movies, copy cat CGI IP epics, and a few well made genre movies sprinkled throughout the year (PLANE was one of those bad boys!). This means the majority of movies that are released in theaters now exist in a green screen reality with people dressed in costumes standing in front of it. And, unfortunately most of these movies do not take 13 years to produce like Jim Cameron’s AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, so, they look awful. That’s what we have going on here in Loki. The physical sets that actually exist, they look fine. Nothing special (mostly offices, a dessert with real sand), but we don’t even get to enjoy these real locals for long, as constant fake looking holograms appear to bombard us with exposition, and or “world building.” People constantly turn to CGI dust when touched with little sticks, and there’s CGI robots, people being controlled by remotes. All of this, could maybe work, but it doesn’t even have a chance since it looks so bad.

Problem 3: corny mumbo jumbo. There’s a lot of bad lines that have to be delivered in a Marvel movie (and now show) in able to tell these stories. Characters have to say stupid villain or hero names, talk about “realms,” “dimensions,” and “timelines,” and they have to do it with a straight face. Some of the stuff that gets info-dumped on us here, just isn’t sold well to us by the actors delivering the lines, and I don’t know if it could be. It just comes off dumb. The way any well executed fantasy or sci-fi property pulls this stuff off (getting us to believe in their fake convoluted worlds) is by jumping in, getting us involved with characters, and then slowly giving us bits of information to fill in the world. Loki just info-dumps all this stuff about the sacred time-line, variants, and then keeps going. The mumbo-jumbo is the story, instead of some event. That’s how episode 1 plays out, which is a terrible way to start any story. (It’s lazy, and bad writing).

Overall, Loki comes off about as fresh as a bottle of flat soda. You can kind of tell that it could almost be enjoyable, it has a lot of the pieces of things you probably liked. Bits of BLADE RUNNER aesthetic, a dash of STAR WARS, a nod to JURASSIC PARK, but, unfortunately, it’s not even as good as the bad third sequel in any of those series. It’s a stinker, but, here I am, watching it anyways. You win Marvel. Baskin Robbins always finds out.

Free Guy

People enjoy movies for different reasons. For some they’re looking for popcorn fun, for others they’re wanting to feel a connection with their fellow man. It’s not often that you get a film that does both at the same time. And that’s what Free Guy has pulled off here.

Free Guy is about a background video game character in an MMO 3rd person shooter. Basically, this is a Grand Theft Auto style video game that massive amounts of people play online at once. Players can commit crimes, earn video game currency, and all the rest that you would expect in a violent video game. Now, enter Ryan Reynolds’ character Guy. He’s an NPC, a non playable character in the background who works at a bank. His job is to get held up every day by players robbing his bank, and he does it with a smile on.

A big part of what makes this movie a success is Ryan Reynold’s himself. He casts away his typical smarmy persona in exchange for something more sincere. Reynolds’ plays Guy as a genuinely nice person, who exists in a world full of over-the-top video game violence. It’s a great contrast that causes lots of conflict and keeps the story moving forward in interesting ways. The other thing this film has going for it is a smart script. It’s funny, and takes what could have felt like a retread of other sci-fi films and makes it feel fresh.

And, above all, the biggest takeaway I had from this movie was it’s sincerity. It doesn’t shy away from actually having something to say about the human experience. It embraces it, and leaves us feeling a little more human ourselves by the end credits.

A Star Is Born

5/5 Stars

A Star Is Born is easily one of the best—if not the best—film I’ve seen this year. It’s a film that feels both familiar yet original at the same time. Its entire goal is to make you feel. To send an emotion from the screen into you. As an audience member there’s not much more you can ask for from a piece of art than to be moved. And that’s what this film sets out to do, and it does so with style.

The film stars Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, and Sam Elliott. All three are great here. But it’s Cooper and Gaga who steal the show. Both actors play flawed, and charismatic artists. Cooper is Jackson Maine, a world famous rock star who stumbles upon a girl with a beautiful voice, Gaga’s Ally, at a bar one night. They hit it off, and he invites her to a concert. From there things escalate quickly. And if that brief description sounds as if it wouldn’t appear genuine on film, that’s just part of the magic of the movie. The story, the characters, and the performances all feel so real. So true to life that we care about everything that’s happening, and we believe that what is happening is real to these people, and that it matters. It’s an amazing feeling to see someone genuinely enjoying themselves, to see them conquering their fears. But this being a film that doesn’t want to settle for a single note, it also asks you to feel the other side of the spectrum. To experience the sadness of these stars lives when things don’t work out, when things go in fact very very bad.

I will also add that the music is fantastic. Gaga’s voice is beautiful and meshes better with the rock and piano sound than it does with her own real-life pop music. Cooper’s direction (this is his directorial debut) is also very good. There is an obvious intimacy to the shots, and all of it feels very appropriate. The script (which Cooper co-wrote) is also strong, and the three leads bring it to life. Cooper’s dialogue comes out like poetry.

If you’re looking for a film to see this fall, I couldn’t give a stronger recommendation to A Star Is Born. It’s a 2018 must see.

Black Panther: Review

3/5 Stars

Black Panther is the latest blockbuster film in the Disney/Marvel movie universe. It's also the latest to be touted by excited fans (and reviewers) to be the greatest one yet. Is it? Well, it depends on what you're measuring, and what you want from your film. I'll explain below.

Panther on it's face is a really cool idea. An African nation avoided colonization by European nations during the late 1800's by hiding from the world under an invisible bubble. They have a special mineral in their country's soil that they used to create advanced technology the world has never seen, creating a utopian country in Africa hidden from the world.

So it has a cool premise, but where does it go from there? It gets cooler with (*spoiler alert*) the only villain that would make sense with this awesome premise: an angry black American, who also happens to be Wakandan (Wakanda is the fictional country of Black Panther), who brings forth the question of why the world's most powerful black nation isn't helping its fellow man? He asks the King of Wakanda (the character Black Panther) and his council this, and then challenges T'Challa to a battle for the Kingdom, the winner dictating how the technology of Wakanda will be used.

The actors are all great, Michael B. Jordan especially shines as the layered villain Erik "Killmonger" Stevens. He's easily the most interesting villain in the MCU, and the most interesting character in Black Panther. 

So, the premise is good, the acting is good, so why only three stars? Other than these awesome aspects (as well as other awesome things I didn't mention: such as the fact that the cast is almost entirely black, and it's not 

The Last Jedi: Review

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the second film in the new Star Wars trilogy. It follows the 2015 film, The Force Awakens. That film was headlined by Harrison Ford as Han Solo, and featured a handful of characters replacing the original trilogy's heroes as well as appearances by fan favorites R2-D2 and C3-P0 (and Leia and Luke, but luckily their parts were small. The Last Jedi unfortunately shows us what happens when you expand the roles of actors who haven't gotten in front of the camera in decades).

There were a lot of questions left from The Force Awakens. Questions of who Rey is (and why doesn't she have a last name?), who Snoke is, what happened with Luke and the jedi, what made Ben Solo become Kylo Ren, and just how is it that Han Solo is exactly the same person he was 30 years ago? None of those questions are answered in The Last Jedi. The movie's too busy moving through the plot points, and wowing us with new cutesy CGI creatures.

Don't get me wrong, the battles are fine. The CGI looks bright and pretty, the sound is fine, the music, everything is pretty fine. The acting isn't great, the parts aren't either (nobody gets any real growth). There's so much that's just "fine" in this movie, that it's hard to pin-point just what it is that makes it so unenjoyable. Because that's what one expects to experience when they go see a big blockbuster movie: a bit of joy. But in this movie I felt none. There was a brief moment where I thought "oh no, they might kill Finn" but then I immediately wondered if I'd really care if they did (the answer was "not really").

And the worst part is (and this is a problem that started in The Force Awakens) is that the hero is so much more powerful than the villain, there's exactly zero fear that the hero will lose in part three of this trilogy.

I don't know if it's that this series is just a repeat of the first trilogy (there's a joke before the "Hoth battle" of this movie that the snow is actually salt, so, you know it's different) that makes it feel by the numbers or if it's lazy writing. Lots of series take the same basic plot ideas, but then subvert them to make something new out of it, but this series seems intent on not really bothering, and also on not bothering in building the characters they have (instead they go for silly jokes you'd expect in a Transformers movie or a Pirate's of the Carribean movie, which seems to be all this series aspires to be: a fluffy cash cow, rather than something worth watching).

There's also issues with Luke and Leia. A lot of it stems from neither being that great at live action acting (Mark Hamill is an excellent voice actor) but it's also that EVERY character in this movie has very little to do that matters (nobody says anything to anyone that sounds genuine or has reason to). For a moment I thought Luke was going to bring up some genuine questions when he asks Rey, "Who are you? Why are you here? Why are YOU here?" but that's just brushed aside like everything else in this movie.

One of my biggest problems with the film was that the new heroes are so self-important. The biggest offender being Poe. The guy marches around like he owns the Resistance, demanding he be given full knowledge of what's going on, and throwing temper tantrums when he's not given what he wants. It's just so annoying. Poe hasn't earned any of the screen time he gets in the film. He's just not that important (or even likable, or smart or clever, or anything) so why is he even a main character? Finn has so much more potential to be interesting, but he's just waisted in this movie. He goes off on an adventure (mid slowest chase scene you've ever seen in a movie) to grab another character to help them escape the chase (and since it's such a slow chase, they have time). They don't find the dude, but somehow find another guy who can do the exact same thing in a prison cell that also includes them (and no one else). Finn spends time here being goofy ("Yay, we're in a casino!" he more or less exclaims) and that's pretty much it. The new character Rose is another one of those just "fine" additions to the cast, but because the cast is already jammed packed with characters it shouldn't be, adding one more of them who is just "fine" is unnecessary.

Overall, Star Wars: The Last Jedi isn't the worst film in the series, but is down there just slightly above them. If I had a choice, I'd go back and tell myself to see an indie movie instead, that way I'd leave the theater happy I watched a movie, instead of shrugging my shoulders and telling my wife, "It was fine."

Logan: Review

Logan is the latest installment in the Wolverine/X-men film saga. It marks the 9th time Hugh Jackman has portrayed the character of Wolverine, and also serves as his last outing in the series.

The beauty of Logan lies in that it hardly qualifies as a superhero movie at all. Yes, Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman are playing their iconic superhero characters they established on screen 17 years ago in X-Men, but these portrayals of the Wolverine and Charles Xavier are nothing like we've ever seen on screen before. Logan is a burnt out, aging mutant, whose filled with more rage and regret than we've ever seen him with before (this is easily Hugh Jackman's best performance as the character), and Xavier, wow, talk about character evolution. Charles is no longer the wise calming character we've come to know these last 17 years, he's now a confused, scared, and often times angry, old man who's looking for as much redemption as Wolverine. But, putting aside the character defying expectations of Logan, the film does not move like a superhero movie, nor feel like one. Its pacing is slow, and deliberate. Every scene carries weight, developing the characters, revealing motives and traits, while pushing the story forward. It's a film that has more in common with Hell or High Water than it does Ironman. And the movie is all the better for it. Its themes, and tragic story mesh perfectly with the western genre the movie inhabits.

Now, it's definitely worth saying that this isn't a movie for kids. Which I know seems strange, but this is not your summer superhero movie. Logan was not designed to get as many 12 and unders through the door as possible, it was designed to give an emotional gut punch to adults with even a vague sense of who these characters are: a man cursed with immortality, and retractable metal claws, and a powerful psychic who can no longer control his awesome abilities.

All of Logan's parts add up to an intensely entertaining film that satisfies as both the greatest entry in the X-men film franchise, and as brilliant twist on the modern western film genre.

La La Land

5/5 Stars

For the last 10 years or so (maybe just 8...who's really counting at this point?) my wife and I have seen a movie on Christmas. The first one I can really remember seeing was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was the first—anyhow, this year's Christmas movie was La La Land, a modern musical based on an original screenplay by writer director Damien Chazelle, who gave us 2014's Whiplash. Much like Whiplash this is a movie that blends comedy, drama, and does it in a way that feels fresh and fun, while simultaneously being a visual pleasure filled with great performances.

Now, it's almost deceptive to say that La La Land is a musical, even though by definition it is. I say that because there's never really been a movie like La La Land before, not in 50 years. It's not a musical that's trying to emulate the musicals of the 50's (though it does have visual allusions to some), it's simply a modern movie that's been inspired by them, in the same way that Indiana Jones was inspired by the serials of 1930's. It's taken an idea that's been done before, and modernized it, made it fresh. While all the musical numbers are great (and you'll be happy to know that there aren't an overwhelming, nor an underwhelming number of them), the film primarily cares about telling a good story, and the songs serve to strengthen the story above all us.

La La Land stars Ryan Gosling, and Emma Stone as the two leads. They play a couple of artists (a jazz pianist, and an actress) trying to make their dreams come true in L.A. Both Stone and Gosling are great. They're committed to all three aspects of the film: the drama, comedy, and the music (Gosling and Stone learned to sing and dance for the film). They're chemistry is also great. We really buy that these are two 30 somethings who happen to bump into one another in the world and fall in love.

Overall, La La Land is a fun flick that's meant to be seen on the big screen. Do yourself a favor and grab some tickets.

Rogue One: Review

3.5 Stars

Rogue One is the latest in Disney's new series of Star Wars films, following 2015's The Force Awakens. Rogue One sets itself apart from The Force Awakens in several ways, the biggest being tone and time period (The Force takes place after Return of The Jedi and Rogue One takes place before Star Wars: A New Hope), as well as pacing.

Rogue One opens with an origin story for our central character. Her family is killed before her, and she's left hiding in a hole only to be saved by one of the last Jedi's who we assume will train her into the next bad ass Jedi, a la the Luke Skywalker we've never heard of. From here the movie elapses to the future, and hops from planet to planet showing snippets of stories of various characters who we've never met. This part of the film tries the viewers patience as we're given maybe 2 minutes of screen time with a set of characters before then jumping to another long exterior shot of a planet, then an exterior shot of a location on the planet, and then a new character. It's a lot of world building right up front, and no character building. Character building is a problem that plagues the whole movie. While the supporting characters are all quite interesting and have well defined traits, the central characters Jyn Erso (this movie's Luke) and Cassian Andor (this movie's Han) are not well defined. We're not even sure what it is that drives Jyn, she's simply following the film's plot because, hey, she was asked to do it. We have no idea what drives her, what her goals are, or what kind of person she is. She has no emotional arc in the film, no growth. Cassian, a rebel teammate working with Jyn to do something or nother to help the rebellion, has what almost appears like character growth (he refuses to kill someone the rebellion tells him to kill), but his character is so underdeveloped that this action carries no weight in the story. The plot's also not very compelling, but that may just be because we have no characters with stakes in it.

Now, that being said, the visuals are very much what we all think of and dream of when we think of Star Wars. The film marries practical effects and costumes with CGI to the point that borders on perfection. The filmmakers obviously genuinely cared about the look and feel of the movie. To me, this is most clear in what is arguably the best scene in the movie, in a scene featuring Darth Vader taking on a group of rebels, he wields his light saber slow and direct, just the way he did in the battle against Luke in Return of the Jedi, while also hurling them against the walls and ceiling with just a wave of the finger. During this scene Vader doesn't run, he doesn't even increase his pace by a step, which is exactly the way Vader should behave. He's the most powerful man in the galaxy, he has no reason to run. As simple as that idea is to most Star Wars fans, after seeing the prequels, it's just nice to see a beloved character from the original trilogy appear and not be doing back flips while wielding dull light sabers. 

The pacing is deliberately slow for the first half of the movie. There's one really cool fight between a blind Jedi (who doesn't wield a lightsaber, sadly) and a group of storm troopers, but other than that it's mostly talking and planet hopping. The film doesn't really pick up until the last third of the movie when Jyn and a hand full of rebels decide to fly to Alderaan to steal the plans of the Death Star, which reveals its weakness. It's here that we get epic ground and air battles, with everything from AT-ATs on the beach to TIE Fighters and X-Wings going at it in the space above. These scenes are well done, but again, because there aren't much stakes (we know the rebellion gets the plans, this is a prequel), and because no one has any personal stake in the events of the story, it feels a little hollow, but still looks pretty cool.

All that being said, I did really like three of the new characters, K-2S0, a reprogrammed imperial droid, Chirrut Imwe, the blind sort-of Jedi, and Baze Malbus, a silent soldier type who's buddies with the blind eccentric Chirrut. All of these guys fit well into the movie, and added color and personality to what would have been an otherwise pretty dull experience character wise.

Overall, I recommend Rogue One, but think you should keep in mind that it's really not going to pick up until you get past that first half.

Hacksaw Ridge

Hacksaw Ridge is Mel Gibson's latest directorial effort in nearly a decade. It's being touted by some critics as his "comeback film" as it offers plenty of Hollywood violence as well as family fun. It's a movie that it is so hypocritical in it's message, that it's hard to say if it really has one at all. It's a strange film. One that bounces from religious Hallmark movie levels of corny, to fairly well down WWII action set pieces. It's a strange mix. And even in the action set pieces, there are issues with the sappy script bleeding over. No one in this film curses, yet every soldier refers to the Japanese as "The Japs." Sure, you can argue this is to add some realism to the film, but surely soldiers facing unbeatable odds in WWII wouldn't just say "aw shucks" when they're friends' arms are being blown off. The choice in leaving out foul language is an obvious pander to the family-friendly/religious audience this film is trying to market. This only makes it strange that all the soldiers use the slur "Japs" but they won't say "fuck" or "shit" or any other language a real person in WWII would say. It's as if Gibson wants to dehumanize the Japanese in the film while simultaneously not humanizing the American characters. The characters are one of the many problems with Hacksaw. No one in the film grows. The main character, Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), is a god fearing pacifist who enlists to "serve" but refuses to carry a weapon. The real life story of Desmond Doss is very interesting, (it's disappointing that they couldn't do more with the story) but the character in the movie is never presented as anything other than a saint with unwavering values. Not once does he question his reasoning for joining the fight (despite having a beautiful fiance back home, family, etc.), feel any kind of doubt, or have any growth or struggles that would add to the tension of the story. The Desmond character is perfect from the beginning of the film to the end of it, which gives us very little reason to feel invested in his journey.

There's also some visuals problem with the film that really bothered me as they took me out of the movie. There's nothing worse than seeing the strings of the spaceship on screen to ruin your immersion in a good sci-fi flick, the same goes here. The god-awful CGI battleships that fire on the Japanese looks like something out of a modern Saturday morning cartoon. These scenes could have been completely cut and nothing would have been lost, but here they remain to remind the audience that they're watching a movie where the director only cares if it looks believable when it's the middle of a battle with human beings. There's also quite a few scenes where the set and the way that it's shot resemble a sitcom, or a film shot on a sound stage in the 1930s,  rather than a big budget film shot in the year 2016. Some of this has to do with the way Gibson films his scenes, but it also just looks like Gibson didn't really care how these sets looked. It's as if he sank the majority of the film's resources into the battle sequences, and said to hell with how the rest of the film turned out.

There's also some strange casting choices, as everyone is either Australian or British. The one American actor of note being Vince Vaughn. He plays a hard ass drill sergeant, which works about as well as it sounds.

Overall, Hacksaw Ridge is a deeply flawed movie with some working parts, but none of it is ever strong enough to justify the ticket price at the door.

Central Intelligence

3/5 STARS

Central Intelligence is a buddy comedy movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Heart as the buddies.

Central Intelligence gets more of its DNA from The Other Guys than it does Lethal Weapon. The film is primarily a comedy, and uses the action as vehicle to come up with situations and opportunities for jokes. The problem is that very often these jokes are not that funny. I do applaud the film going in a different direction from most modern comedies. The Rock isn't simply playing his usual bad ass "The Rock" character, he has a little more depth than that, and is sexuality is a little more than questionable, which adds something to the mix. Kevin Heart however is pretty much just Kevin Heart, but that's not really a bad thing. He plays well of The Rock, and there are a few decent scenes between the two.

Over all, Central Intelligence is a comedy that never really makes it out of 2nd gear, but the two leads make it watchable.

The Shallows

4/5 STARS

The Shallows is a summer shark movie staring Blake Lively as a bikini clad surfer hanging out on an unknown isolated island in a foreign land. Her phone is on the beach, no one knows where she is, and she's trapped on a rock with a killer shark circling the area. This is the kind of summer popcorn movie that makes going to the theater fun.

The most surprising thing about The Shallows is just how much it all works. The plot is simple (a woman tries to survive a killer shark), the setup is too (a young girl's mother dies, she goes to Mexico with a friend to look for solace...the friend stays at the hotel, hungover), but it's all there, building up to the shark attack and the subsequent fight for survival. In the center of this simple story is Blake Lively, who's performance is straight, believable. And the bikini I mentioned earlier is covered up with a surfing jacket through most of the movie—which makes perfect sense when you're laying on a cold rock in the ocean—and wins the viewer (male and female) over much more than a simple move to keep Blake in as little clothing as possible would. And it's not just Blake that's taking the film serious, the director and the rest of the cast are as well. They're buying into the plot of a killer shark, even though it's a stretch to imagine a great white circling a single beach for 48 hour period, that is the only bit of fantasy in the film, the rest feels believable enough for us to buy into and go with the fun of watching a strong woman try to survive.

See The Shallows if you're looking for some summer fun.

The Conjuring 2

3.5/5 STARS

The Conjuring 2 is the sequel to 2013 film The Conjuring and is based on the paranormal cases of real life paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The Conjuring 2 is an effective thriller. It opts for slow moving cameras in dark rooms, with strange spooky objects lingering in the background. It's a film that cares more about atmosphere than about graphic images, which makes the scares all the more effective. The strongest aspect of the film is the two leads. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson play the Warrens, and they are both real characters that come to care about, not filler horror tropes that we anticipate biting the dust at some point in the film (in fact we hope very much that Lorraine's premonition of Ed's death doesn't come true!)

Over all, a great little spooky summer movie. Check it out if you're into scares and you want a little heart mixed into it.

Popstar

3/5 STARS

Popstar: Never Stop Popping is a satirical comedy about a Popstar named Connor who gets huge over night, only to watch his popularity plummet with his latest album.

Popstar stars Andy Samberg in the title role of the popstar. He plays a well spoken yet oblivious character. He does it well, making us believe in his character, even if the things they do with him aren't that interesting. It feels like a weaker version of This Is Spinal Tap or What We Do In The Shadows. The whole crew is really trying here, there are a lot of familiar faces of comedy on display, but they just don't seem to have anything to say other then "Justin Bieber's an idiot."

Other than a few good gags, and a decent performance from Samberg, there's not much to recommend here. Skip this guy unless you're a big Samberg fan.

The Nice Guys

3.5/5 STARS

The Nice Guys is a buddy cop movie in the spirit of 48 Hours, and Lethal Weapon (which makes sense, since it's written by Shane Black, the writer of Lethal Weapon). The film stars Russel Crowe as a leg breaker who crosses paths with a private investigator, played by Ryan Gosling. The two eventually join forces to solve a greater crime.

Like Lethal Weapon and 48 Hours what makes this movie work is the actors ability to fill their character types effectively. Gosling is especially good as the goofy and sometimes brilliant PI. His so good they have to be ad libbed squeals really pump humor into the film, which is badly needed with what sometimes feels like a hum-drum plot that's just going through the motions. Crow is also good as the tough as nails enforcer with a hidden heart of gold. It's a good combo, but there's not enough playing off of one another to really live up to the expectations the audience has for a buddy cop movie.

Over all, it's a fun summer film that isn't a sequel, remake, or have a single superhero in it. Definitely worth seeing.

Me Before You

3/5 STARS

Me Before You is a romantic drama, in the spirit of The Notebook, Dear, John, and all the other Nicholas Spark movies that have come out since. The setup is typical of this genre. Two people meet that at first don't really like each other, fall in love. There's a dash of tragedy added for flavor (the male character is paralyzed) and will he or will he not plot thread as well (not will he marry her, but will he end his life or will he choose to live paralyzed). What makes this movie unique is Emilia Clarke's performance. She balances funny with serious, making her character believable and lovable. Most scenes she's in she's stealing the show and lighting up the screen. If it weren't for her performance I don't think I could recommend the movie, but because of it I can. Looking for a decent date movie? This could be it.

X-Men: Apocalypse

This movie had a lot of problems. Too many new characters that we don't have any emotional connection with. Sure, this is an X-Man movie, so these characters have a long history in other formats—even in X-Men movies that are still sort of considered a part of this series—but now that these characters have been "rebooted" and are being played by different actors, as a film you have to build those characters if you expect audiences to care. The movie never does.

Another character problem is that we don't have a character at the center, grounding the narrative (Wolverine did that in all the other films accept First Class). I understand the argument that the X-Men universe is full of characters that could be used on film, but you need to have central characters people care about, and none of the characters in the film are very interesting or worth rooting for. This is more a fault of the script than the actors, as it doesn't give any of them anything interesting to do.

Putting aside a lack of interesting characters or general purpose for the film, it's also not very fun, even in a big dumb Hollywood way. It's not as bad as say, a Transformers movie, but it's not that much better either. Overall a subpar film, that doesn't have anywhere to go. Apocalypse is a sequel that's run out of juice.

Keanu

Keanu is the first full length film by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, the comedy duo behind Comedy Central's sketch comedy show, Key and Peele. Now I was never a full time viewer of Key and Peele, but the stuff I've seen from it has been pretty great. The show gave us Obama's Anger Translator, funny sketches on black culture and history, and my personal favorite, Obama in College (it's especially funny to me because I've read his memoir, and it's a little of what I'd imagine Obama's college life was like). Now with such great sketches under their belt, you'd think they'd have one hell of a comedy they'd be bringing to the big screen, and well, while it's much better than many other comedies that have been shoved down our throats (*cough* Melissa Mccarthy) it's still not the action comedy romp the poster implies (go see The Kingsman for that. Surprisingly great action comedy. Spy was also pretty good, despite my disdain for Mccarthy's comedy pictures, Stathom really shines in that one).

So, Keanu's basic premises is two suburban black men accidentally find themselves immersed in the underground world of drug dealing to fetch a stolen kitten. The jokes come from all the drug dealers Key and Peele encountering being hard Wesley-Snipes-in-New-Jack-City black people types, so in an attempt to save their kitten they take on their hard black personas of Shark Tank and Tectonic. They come up with crazy stories of having rival drug dealers take out their appendixes when it comes time to compare scars. The jokes are decent, but they don't come often enough. On the plus side, the jokes are intelligent, and don't make you feel like the movie assumes your dumb, and only find babies puking and taking dumps in people's faces entertaining. This movie is a little deeper than that, and the audience's experience is all the better for it.

Money Monster

Here's a movie that has better intentions than it does execution. It's obviously supposed to be a conversation piece for big money's interest in the economy, but it comes off as more a movie about a lone, desperate man willing to sacrifice his life to make a point (we do end up feeling sorry for this character thanks to a decent screenplay and good performances by the three leads—George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Jack O'Connell).

Money Monster is not about the 2008 Great Recession, despite the language being used that resembles so much of what we're hearing today on the campaign trail, instead the setup is there's a big company whose stock is ripe for purchasing because it's always a great investment, so says George Clooney on his television show Money Monster, but then this single companies stock plummets because of "a computer glitch" (which I never could buy that anyone believed that that explanation would work in real life with stock holders. I mean, I guess crazier things have happened, but more people than just this one blue collar worker would be royally pissed if this were the explanation), and costing stockholders millions of dollars. The lone desperate man is one of these investors, he lost 10,000 dollars after listening to Clooney's advice and sticking all of his inheritance in it.

So, that's the setup. The rest of the movie is relatively tense, there's character evolution in Clooney's character, and the plot moves forward at a good pace, ending in a satisfying enough finally. Over all, it's a decent film, one worth checking out if it happens to be playing on a screen nearby, but nothing to seek out.

Sing Street

Sing Street is an interesting movie. Not just in the premise, or in the fact that the music produced in it is was actually recorded by the child actors (the leading of which now has a music contract), but it's interesting in how real it feels. Now, I by no means believe every film should be a reflection of real life, but they should be grounded in something that feels real. This is why Game of Thrones is so beloved—the characters and situations of that show are all grounded in the behaviors of real people. In Sing Street what grounds the movie in reality is the children. Their performances and interactions with one another feel like what I remember from my high school days. Looking to impress girls, but not being sure how. Guess I better start a band. The silly lyrics the band start out with, and the relatable and surprisingly deep ones they end up with by the end of the movie are just one example the screenplay gives to character depth.

The music is also quite good. My favorites being "Drive It Like You Stole It" and "To Find You." All of the songs have an element of fun to them, and show an impressive range in the young actor-musicians' ranges.

It's a well made movie that had a lot of love put into to (and another thing, I love it when movies have great young actors in it I've never seen before. Wish this happened more often. They don't have to be young, but just fresh faces we've never seen before. It's refreshing to see someone we don't know give it their all on screen) and it shows in the final product. Great movie, with an ending that left me wanting a little more, but as the French say, "that's life."