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.

Black Panther Two- Wakanda Forever

Wakanda Forever started with a nice little introduction honoring Chadwick Bosman. When they usually play the opening Marvel theme and show highlights of all the superheroes, they just showed images of him with silence. That was one of my favorite parts of the movie. That doesn't necessarily mean it went down hill from there. I actually liked it a little more than I expected I would.

This sequel features the upheaval and problems Wakanda experiences as Black Panther has just died and world powers are beginning to plot against their country in order to obtain vibranium. During this time, a new adversary from the ocean is introduced who gives Wakanda an ultimatum that they can assist him to attack the rest of the world as an ally or be destroyed. 

Other things happened but I really don't want to write a book report about this movie. Proceed to last paragraph for summary.

I was afraid Marvel/Disney would mess with this movie sequel like they did with the most recent Thor installment. There were plenty of plot holes and problems with the movie, but it was not that bad.  Black Panther 2 was alright. I give it 6.9 stars.

Black Adam

When I saw the trailer for Black Adam I was not very excited. I've been conditioned not expect too much from DC comics movies over time (aside from the Batman movies.) I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and liked it more than I thought I would. 

I'm not a comic book nerd so I had never heard of any of the characters, which was kind of nice because I didn't have expectations or preconceived notions about this movie. Black Adam is basically an anti-hero who doesn't want to cooperate with the other superheroes who are policing the world against their enemies. There are many action scenes and just the right amount of humor.

There were plenty of predictable moments and shortcomings in this movie but I found it entertaining enough give it 6.8 stars. I also enjoyed Pierce Brosnan's performance
as Dr. Fate.

RRR

Last month I watched RRR on Netflix which stands for Rise, Roar, Revolt. I wasn't sure what to expect from this Indian action movie but was pleasantly surprised. The first several scenes of the movie got me hooked mostly from the beautiful cinematography and special effects. A few minutes into the movie I realized that this movie was not going to be bogged down by the laws of physics. Much of the action was incredibly fake but it looked so amazing I didn't even mind.

This movie takes place in India in the 1920's. A young Indian girl is kidnapped from her village by a cruel British governor. A warrior is dispatched from her people to go and find her and bring her back. At the same time, an elite Indian soldier serving in the British military is sent out to locate and stop this man. They meet one another unaware of each other's true identities or intentions and quickly become good friends. There are some plot twists and surprises as the film progresses but I won't spoil them here.

All the British people in this movie except for one woman are portrayed as heartless, sadistic colonizers. The near three hour movie features a bromance among the two main characters that crosses the entire spectrum of intense emotions. There is plenty of crazy, unrealistic CGI, but because it was so beautiful and entertaining I could not really hold it against the movie. Since this was an action movie, I was unprepared for the two or three traditional Bollywood musical/dance numbers it featured. It felt kind of like watching Indian Jones and then having it morph into the Sound of Music.

After seeing many mediocre superhero movies over the last few years, I felt this was a breath of fresh air and very entertaining even though it is a little long. I give it 7.7 stars.