4 More Movie Summaries

I've seen four movies since my last post, and as usual, here is my short take on each, ranked from best to worst. 

Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes- This prequel to the Hunger Games tells the story of the early years of President Snow. I enjoyed this more than I expected. I always enjoy movies where the main characters have to fight against a corrput and powerful system that controls them. Towards the end of the movie, when he goes to a military academy, I was a little distracted since I thought the main character looked like Eminem with his short haircut. Overall, it was good, but it's definitely a dark and depressing tragedy. I give it 7.3 stars.

The Creator- This futuristic science fiction movie covers the topic of man vs AI/robots, as many other prior movies have. I liked this flm. It was directed by Gareth Edwards who also directed Rogue One, and I recognized several similarities between the two films. The acting and special effects were good and I give it 7.2 stars.

A Haunting in Venice- I have really enjoyed all of Kenneth Brannagh's Poirot movies. The previews made this one look more like a dark horror movie since it takes place on Halloween, but it definitely turns into a mystery. I liked it, but not quite as much as the prior two installments. I still give it 6.7 stars.

Lady Ballers- I thought I would be entertained by a film that satirizes men abusing women's sports, cancel culture, and extreme wokeness, but this movie was horrible. The concept had potential, but no subtlety. It felt like it was written by a 5th grade boy who watched a bunch of Adam Sandler movies, then tried to copy their formulas. The problem was, this was not funny. Aside from the many political pundits making cameos in the film, the only actor I recognized was Tyler Fischer who is a hillarious impressionist, but he was limited with what he could do with his character. I consider myself to be fairly conservative, but I was embarrased by this. I was also surprised for how much The Daily Wire bashes Hollywood, and claims to be pro- family, how much crude and raunchy humor it contained. I give it 4.6 stars. My message to the Daily Wire- Don't quit your day job. 

65

A Couple Monthe ago I saw 65 while on an airplane. This is a science fiction movie starring Adam Driver and 65 refers to 65 million years ago. In this film an astronaut crashes on a planet and soon realizes it is the home to dangerous dinosaurs he has to avoid while protecting a young girl.

This movie was trash. I like Adam Driver and think he's a good actor but he didn't have a chance in this movie. I'm usually a fan of sci fi./action movies, but I'm not sure if it was the script, directing, or acting, but this movie was just missing something. I got bored watching it. I was shocked when I learned the writer/directors were the same guys who did A Quiet Place.

Anyway, the best part about this movie was probably the poster. I don't even remember if I finished it or how it ended. I give it 5.5 stars.

MI 7 Vs. Inferior Action Movies

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

I have loved the Mission Impossible movie franchise and was looking forward to this latest release.  I liked this installment, with one exception.  

There was a scene towards the beginning of the movie where several top government officials were discussing what they were up against. It was basically an excuse to explain the plot. Movie plot exposition is a common thing in many films, but this was the most blatant example of this I've ever seen. The camera panned around the table as each person said a few sentences and then the next person would take over the briefing and pick up right where the last person ended. It was like the director said instead of having one person give the plot explanation to get the viewers up to speed, let's spread it over six actors. It just felt so forced and unnatural that it really bothered me. Sorry to spend so much time nitpicking that one scene. 

Besides that, I found it very entertaining and Tom Cruise was great, as usual. I think I actually enjoyed the prior Fallout installment a little more, but I still give it 7.9 stars. 

Contrast that with two different action movies that recently came out on Netflix. These were Heart of Stone starring Gal Gadot and Hidden Strike starring Jackie Chan and John Cena. Both were ridiculous and I couldn't take them seriously. I wanted to enjoy them but they were so unrealistic.

I know Mission Impossible is not a Ken Burns documentary and is also totally fake, but it's done well enough that you can entertain the premise. That is something I could not do watching 120 lb. Gal Gadot defeat multiple soldiers in hand to hand combat or watching her supervisor pull CGI surveillance data displays into the air and knowing what was happening all around the world at any given minute. Nor could I believe that John Cena has a jet engine in the desert that can create a dust storm to create cover for him to hijack 2 buses from a military convoy with a couple guys on dune buggies. Maybe he learned those physics from the Fast and Furious Franchise.

Anyway, I couldn't even finish the last two movies so it's unfair for me to give them a number rating, but they made me much more grateful for Mission Impossible 7. Now I just have to wait a couple years for part 2.

Ranking the 5 Last Movies I've Seen

Since my last post several months ago, I've seen 5 movies. I'm ranking them by how much I enjoyed them. I really don't care who agrees with me.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves- I am the furtherst thing from a D&D enthusiast, and know little about that nerd world, but I still really enjoyed this movie. It was kind of like a comedy version of Lord of the Rings and I laughed hard several times and that's enough to move it to the top of my list. I give it 7.5 stars. 

Guardins of The Galaxy: Volume 3- Marvel/Disney has been cranking out a ton of stinkers since Infinity War, so I didn't have super high expectations about this. It was better than I thought it would be and much better than so many of the recent super hero movies, so I give it 7.4 stars.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny- Speaking of low expectations, after seeing Crystal Skull I was afraid they'd further taint the image of one of my all-time favorite movie characters with this 5th Indiana Jones installment. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. I really liked the first half and enjoyed the action and thought they did a good job making Harrison Ford look younger for trhe flashbacks. The second half kind of bogged things down. I didn't care too much for his female sidekick companion in this movie. I give it 7.0 stars.

Greenland- This disaster/action movie came out years ago during Covid, but I only recently saw it on a plane flight. It was more engaging than I expected for an end of the world film. I know it was not a great movie, and would love to get an explanation why Gerard Butler's character had a thick Scottish accent, or why he and his family were selected for the salvation lottery, but it was at least entertaining and I give it 6.9 very generous stars.

Creed 3- I've really enjoyed the Creed series so far and was looking forward to this movie. I liked the first half, but then I had a hard time looking past some really dumb details like how an ex con with minimal boxing experience could rise through the ranks so fast or how he could be watching a Steven A. Smith broadcast on ESPN, then pull out his cell phone and calls the program and immediately get put on the air with him. Then there was the scene at the end when the two rival characters talked to one another in a completely empty sports stadium. So after a huge championship boxing match there were no fans,trainers, media, security, janitors, or anyone else right after the event? I know those are nitpicky things, but little things like that really bothered me. I give it 6.7 stars. I wanted to like it more.

I guess one thing I need to work on is my movie watching endurance. I've noticed a trend where I enjoy the first half of a movie much more than I do the complete film. 

Time for Sequels: Murder Mystery 2 and Avatar 2

Murder Mystery 2- I thought the first Murder Mystery movie was funny so I was glad when I saw a sequel was coming out. I watched the second movie last week and enjoyed it. When I later went on IMDB to look up the cast and trivia information, I was baffled to see it had such a low rating. As of today it is only 5.6 stars. I think that is very harsh. I just had to remind myself that Nacho Libre only has 5.8 stars, so I guess some people just don't understand what a comedy is. I'll be the first to admit that not all Sandler movies are winners, but I was entertained and laughed out loud several times during this movie and that's exactly what I wanted out of it. 

I also like Sandler's character in these movies. He's aging, a little more relaxed, and can make fun of himself. Overall, it was a silly movie and I liked it enough to give it 7.1 stars. I don't remember what I gave the original one, but it was pretty close to that too.

Avatar 2- I'm too lazy to look up the official sequel name, but it's something about water. I originally decided I wasn't going to see this, but a friend bought it and shared it, so I gave it a shot. It was better than I thought. Even though I didn't see it on a big screen, I was impressed away with the FX details behind the movie. I was blown away when I realized they had all the actual actors in the water when they filmed it and then later added the CGI and skins to everything. James Cameron's attention to detail and willingness to do things the hard way should be commended.

I give this movie 7.4 stars mostly because I still can't believe how much time, money, and details went into making it. 

2 Recent Mystery/Suspense Movies

Since I last posted a review, I have watched two mystery/suspense genre movies. The first was Glass Onion and the second was Missing. I enjoyed them both but am too lazy to write a real review or even post pictures from the movies so I am just going to write a Haiku about each movie along with how many stars I give each film.

Glass Onion-         Sequel to Knives Out

                              Sad fate for Mona Lisa

                              Benoit is too smart

I give Glass Onion 7.3 stars

Missing-                Sequel to Searching

                              Different story, but same style

                              I recommend it

I give Searching 7.5 stars

Movies That Didn't Look Interesting To Me

As I get older I am getting more particular as to what movies I watch. I used to be on board to see any new big release but I've gotten fussier these days. In this post I will list some of the movies that were released over the last year and why they didn't appeal to me and as a result, I never saw them.

First of all, I am usually not a fan of animated films. Some of the cartoon movies I've seen and enjoyed over the years include The Incredibles, The Emperors New Groove, and Coco but usually when I see an ad for an animated feature, I have no desire to see it, even if it is a fun movie like Toy Story or Minions: The Rise of Gru.

I loved most of the Marvel movies and felt they reached their pinnacle with Avengers End Game but I have not been a fan of the frequency or quality of what they produced since then. I had no desire to see WandaVision, Loki, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, or really anything put out by Disney over the last couple years. Below are some other movies that just didn't look enticing for me to watch.

Morbius- It seemed like the trailers for this movie were teasing the public for years before it was finally released. I know you are not supposed to judge a movie from a preview, but I did and from what I heard about this film, I'm pretty sure I made the right choice.

Uncharted- I love action movies but seeing Tom Holland jump out of an airplane and run across cargo boxes falling out of it turned me off. I can occasionally suspend my sense of reality at times in order to enjoy a Luc Beeson movie but this one featured the physics from a Fast and Furious movie and did not appeal to me at all. 

Moon Fall- I usually enjoy a good disaster movie but my Spidey senses warned me not to watch this one for some reason. I'm not even sure if it was good or not, but something told me not to pay to see it in the theater so I didn't.

Jurassic World: Dominion- There have been too many sequels to this series and I already had enough of watching Chris Pratt hold up his hands in front of a green screen to control imaginary dinosaurs in the prior installments. I think it sounds cool to see the original cast meet up with the next generation of dinosaur advocates but it just didn't look like it had the substance of the original movies.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore- I've only seen some of the Harry Potter movies. I really liked the final two darker episodes more than the earlier ones featuring cute little kids. I just have no desire to see a prequel or origin story of some wizard and a bunch of characters in a magical world that I don't know anything about.

Devotion- I usually like war/military movies but for some reason the preview for this movie just didn't do anything for me. The co star pilot that was in Top Gun sure got type cast quickly. I'm looking forward to seeing Jonathan Majors in Creed 3 soon but this role did not appeal to me . It's not that I don't respect those who served in Korea or care about racial injustices, it just looked really boring. I hopefully it wasn't but I was not going to take the risk.

Avatar: The Way of Water- This might sound a little blasphemous but I don't really care to see this massive James Cameron movie that has been in the making for years. I was blown away with the special effects when I saw the original on an IMAX screen in 3D, but I actually liked the story more when it was called Dances with Wolves or the Last Samurai. I'm sure the sequel will look amazing and considered seeing it, but I heard it is over 3 hours long and I just don't feel like watching giant blue people for that long.

There you go. I'm done venting and showed that I am a judgmental, cynical, party pooper when it comes to many popular movies. I can't really rate any of these movies since I haven't seen them but I'm okay going with my gut and missing out on these films.