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Tomorrowland (2015)


Tomorrowland (2015)



6/10



Starring
George Clooney
Hugh Laurie
Britt Robertson
Raffey Cassidy


Directed by Brad Bird


Tomorrowland is a visual show that can be very inviting. But the plot setting is all too mysterious and dragged for over an hour before you can fully grasp all that is before you.
The movie waste too much time building and arranging the building blocks that it forgot at times to carry the audience along.
With all this mystery being thrown in your face and robots being blown up with an impending doom ahead, you are sometimes playing catch up. The directing waste so much time telling us about something happening or has happened in Tomorrowland, that you get bored waiting to see it.

The movie is a science fiction adventure film that I did enjoy. Disney’s hope of turning another of their rides like Pirates of the Caribbean into a movie franchise failed. Tomorrowland wasn’t financially profitable and was not well welcomed by audience and critics.

The movie plot is as such, an adult Frank (George Clooney) is telling a tale of how he got into a place called Tomorrowland.
We see him as a little boy when a girl named Athena recruit young Frank by giving him a pin with a “T” on it. This pin allows Frank to get into a new world where science thrives and we see flying cars and everything you can imagine a scientific future could be.
Frank’s tale was interrupted by another young lady named Casey. Casey starts to give us a tale of how she got to meet Frank and it is that tale that we get to see most of the time.


Athena gave another pin to Casey by sneaking it into her bag. When Casey touched the pin with her fingers she is transported into a new world, she is transported to Tomorrowland.
When the battery of the pin runs out, she searches online for where she could get answers to the pin.

Her search led her and us to meet some angry robots and we become aware that there is another side to this earth we are living in. Athena saved Casey from being killed by robots and took her to meet the adult Frank. This brought more robots to chase Frank and Casey, with Casey wondering why this is happening and what Frank did that caused him to be kicked out of Tomorrowland.

The movie is directed and written by Brad Bird who also directed and wrote Iron Giant (1999), The Incredibles (2004) and it's sequel Incredibles 2 (2018).

The movie is as I said earlier is visually entertaining and all the fun that the movie could have given is packed in the visual masterpiece Disney carved.
I enjoyed the movie, and I can see why others may not have. I see this as one of those movies that is good enough to see at anytime, sad though that it takes too long to start being great.

The Predator (2018)


The Predator (2018)



5/10



Starring

Boyd Holbrook
Trevante Rhodes
Jacob Tremblay
Keegan-Michael Key
Directed by Shane Black


When Hollywood wants to label you stupid they don’t try to be subtle.
The predator is a movie that stinks of, “the audience would not mind if we just slip some impossible stupid ideas here and there.”
It is an action movie with no class. The Predator is a science fiction action comedy, and this is the forth movie in the series (not counting the Alien vs Predator cross overs).

This version of the Predator movie series, is not the best. After the first Predator movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the second with Danny Glover - the last one and this are just reaching.
The first had a good tale attached, the second was all round violence while the last one and this are just caught in-between what was meant to be good.

The movie plot is as such, in Mexico an army ranger sniper named Quinn and his team were on a hostage retrieval mission. There they were attacked by the Predator (an alien race of hunters), Quinn incapacitates the Predator and stole its armor and mailed it to his home. The predator was
captured and placed in a secret base.
There a stupid thing happens. Imagine this scenario, a lady who happens to be some form of genetic scientist is in a secret medical facility with a sedated alien.
The alien breaks free kills everyone in sight, except her because she was cowering in the corner naked. The alien leaves the lady who gets dressed picks up a tranquilizer gun and starts chasing the alien. Why is she chasing something that killed like a dozen people right in front of her?
From that point on, I knew this movie wants you to suspend reason.

Because it then complicates things by changing the alien Predator backstory as we knew it. As we find out that the Predator we are used to seeing in the previous movies are just hybrids, there were more advanced ones.

What Quinn sent home was decoded by his autistic son and the alien who was free was after it. The more advanced ones too were after the missing gear Quinn stole and we have an army who seem to be confused on who side they are.
You see, they speculated that the Predator they found was a deserter who wanted to come help them defeat the bigger ones.
Question for the writers of this film, why will the army sedate and plan to experiment on our savior?

The movie did not in anyway try to improve on the mess on ground just dived right into it with no better idea in mind.
I will not be recommending this movie to anyone, just do not bother.

The movie is directed by a name we are familiar with Shane Black, who was behind Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout (1991), and The Nice Guys (2016).

A Simple Favor (2018)


A Simple Favor (2018)


4/10



Starring
Anna Kendrick
Blake Lively


Directed by Paul Feig


Is it possible for a movie to have too many twist and turns for its own good?
The answer will be yes.
A simple favor decided to be one of those movies which keeps twisting and turning trying hard to shake off the viewer. Mind you, holding on to see how this movie will end is not a difficult task. For me, the movie could not add up enough thrill and fun in this twist and turns to make up for the time I spent seeing this flick.

When things in this movie gets a little dry, the director (Paul Feig) and his writers decide that imaginations and flash backs were the best way to fill the void. Even though this movie seems to have good reviews, I believe the movie was not worth the experience. I was left wondering what the reviews were on about. That said, I agree with them that the leads Anna Kendrick (Stephanie) and Blake Lively (Emily), were the best thing this movie has to offer. But note, both of them could not make up for the lack of enthusiasm this movie had to offer.



A Simple Favor plays out like this, there is one intelligent psycho who has had all the plans figured out in the beginning. Then to spice things up, sometimes she does not have every thing figured out.

The plot is about two ladies who could not be any more different from one another, even though both had dark secrets that are best left in the dark. They both have boys going to the same school, a play date brought the mothers together and soon they became friends.

Stephanie is a vlogger and lives off the life insurance she got from her husband’s death. Emily on the otherhand is still married and she and her husband are dead broke.
One day Emily called for a simple favor, she asked Stephanie to watch her soon for her as she will be out of town. Days passed and Stephanie has not heard from Emily and decided to take it up and voice out. She reported to the cops and Emily’s husband (who was out of the country at the time) all to no avail.

Things then got twisted when a body washes up to shore. It was the body of a lady whose DNA and physical apperance is that of Emily.
Now Stephanie decided to begin an investigaton into Emily’s life, with the hope that these clues will lead her to find Emily’s killer.

I think the reviews are a huge fan of these lead ladies, because the movie does not deliver the same kind of fun they claim they got watching it.

Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)


Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)



6/10



Starring
Rowan Atkinson
Ben Miller
Emma Thompson


Directed by David Kerr


For me having to sit through another Rowan Atkinson movie is a delight. His high class (Mr. Bean’s) packaged stupidity is not something I get to see in the movies regularly. I have over the years lost the taste for action spy movies, but spy comedies are always a delight.
That said, this movie was not as good as Johnny English (2003) or Johnny English Reborn (2011), but it had for me the barrel of laughs I needed.

Emma Thompson will forever be an amazing actress to behold on the screen, she plays the prime minister in this movie. Her character was just as silly as English was, but not in the stupid way English is. English is was ahead of himself as always and thanks to some well timed errors he ended up saving the day.





Back to make sure that English does what is expected of him is the character Bough (Ben Miller). As usual the world is in trouble, when I say the world I mean the UK and there is nobody to save the day left. As we can recall English is an accidental spy and a complete fool. He is always the last person for the British Secret Service to call and he never misses that call.

This time the British Secret Service has a problem related to this present age, Cyber attacks. They have been hacked and all the names of their agents have been leaked. Now the attacker(s) continued to cause trouble and now they have no choice but to recall all the old agents back.


In a room with the old agents, English took them all out by mistake and he was the only one standing. When on the case he called for his old colleague Bough, and together they began investigating, looking for the villain behind the Cyber threat.
This trail led a path where English stupidity and skills were handy even though they were a distraction to the intent of his cause.

Apprehending who he has now pinpointed to be the man behind the crime is also an herculean task because he is popular and a favorite to someone higher up than English.


My criticism to this movie is that they did not even make any attempt to make the plot good enough for a second viewing. The movie is fun to see, but I can guarantee you that you will not be rushing for seconds. The plot is weak, the character who plays the villain is very annoying and the movie as a whole is below average.
But like I said, it had the amount of laughs that I needed for my day.

Wanted (2008)


Wanted (2008)



6/10



Starring
James McAvoy
Angelina Jolie
Morgan Freeman


Directed by Timur Bekmambetov


Wanted is one of a kind. This movie is a mix of genres and the director Timur Bekmambetov, just made sure he fitted all the necessaries into this cinematic masterpiece. The action thriller had a dark tale to tell and it mixes that with some ironic comedy undertone and it poses a huge cast of thrilling actors.
Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman were at top billing for this movie back in 2008, when James McAvoy was mostly unknown. Over the years though McAvoy has turned out to be a prolific actor and this movie does his power of acting justice. McAvoy is Scottish, and he portrays an American who had his life turned upside down, flipped back up again to have it blown up in his face.

Wanted is based on a comic book miniseries Wanted (2003–04), by Mark Millar and J. G. Jones. The comic itself had a different path than the movie. This movie is well written to maintain the comics tone and diverge on a different path from the comic, as it just lifts elements from it.
The movie is based on the life of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy). Gibson is what many will classify as a loser. He suffers from panic attacks and his live-in girlfriend cheats on him with his best friend. At work Wesley tries to make it through the day by being invisible, but that hardly happens as his boss is always on his case.



Aside from this there is a man being killed. We are shown a world, where this man is faster than normal, stronger and able to do amazing fits at a drop of a coin.
Wesley gets approached by a woman named Fox (Angelina Jolie) who saves him from being killed by a man named Cross. Fox takes Wesley to her boss Sloan (Morgan Freeman) who reveals to Wesley that he is the son of the man that was killed earlier in the movie. The person that killed the man Wesley now believes to have been is father is Cross and they want to train Wesley to take him down.

The training of Wesley in this movie is integral to the fun the movie packs. As we see him shoot the wings of flies, learn how to bend bullets and master his powers.
Wesley is keen on getting revenge for his father’s death, but to do so he was first taken into a series of murders and soon, he was ready. The twist is, he was not fully prepared for the truth and what lies ahead in the path that he has now chosen to follow.

Great action movie, one I will be watching later in the future.

Jumper (2008)


Jumper (2008)



6/10



Starring
Hayden Christensen
Jamie Bell
Rachel Bilson


Directed by Doug Liman


Here is a movie that didn’t get the much celebration that it needed. I can throw in some criticism into this movie’s gear work like; the plot seems rushed and that Hayden Christensen is not much of an actor.
The movie managed to pack into this very rushed plot enough excitement for me to enjoy going through the over hour of action it had more than once. Many wanted the movie to drag the whole detail of the 1992 Steven Gould novel of the same name did. Even though this movie is based on the book, it seems more like Doug Liman and the screenplay writers just grazed Gould’s work. That said, the screenplay was good enough for me.
There is an extent you can go into developing characters this movie did not even try to do that I will be honest, but its packed plot was interesting enough.

Many things could have been done to glue things together that will have made this movie far better, but I guess they did enough. Even though this movie didn’t bother to even try to input any form of character development, it tried in its action.
The movie plot introduces the lead, David (Hayden Christensen) who while trying to get the snow globe of his friend Millie (Rachel Bilson) fell into a frozen lake. He then teleported instead of drowning to his school library.
At that point David knew he had the power to be who he wanted and where he wanted. So he did what many would do, he robbed banks and mastered his power of teleportation and enjoyed his life. He was off the grid for eight years living life at the tops, until one jump too many he came under the radar of a team. The team call themselves Paladins, they are a secret society of religious fanatics who have been tracking down and killing "Jumpers". Jumpers is what they call people like David and their reason was Jumpers are a blasphemy to God's omnipresence.



The lead Paladin after David is Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson). Who is wondering why David has been under the radar for eight years.
David runs into Roland and barely escapes. He makes a mistake to go find his girl Millie and tries to run away with her. On their romantic trip he runs into another jumper (David never knew there were more than one) and the Jumper tells him everything about Jumpers and Paladins.
David again makes the mistake to try and get Millie out, and ends up getting arrested, he gets out by some means you will like to see and finds out that much of his life is a lie.

I enjoyed seeing Jumper then and I did now and I think you will too.