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The Gray Man (2022)

The Gray Man (2022)


5/10



Starring

Ryan Gosling

Chris Evans

Ana de Armas

Billy Bob Thornton

 

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

 

If you want to like this movie, after you are done watching stop. Do not thing about it again. I made that mistake and start to ask myself, “how come Six flipped?” What kind of agent will flip because someone knows his secret identity name and his unit? He was supposed to be a great agent and he flipped just by the mention of his name and unit?

I would have preferred a Count of Monte Cristo kind of thing, where he delivers the message (here it was a flash) and he is taken, him not knowing what the message he delivered was and why he was taken. Give me some suspense, not the same old the top people in the government are crocked and use government agent to clean up messes.

The Russo brothers The Gray Man main challenge is that it is borderline average. Predictable at its best and sometimes dragged way too long at some scenes. It was like the Russo brothers have a thing with Prague. The Prague scene dragged longer than I could have imagine. The way the lead character Six (Ryan Gosling) keeps getting out of tight corners made the men after him simple, there were like children chasing after a serial killer who had infinite bullets and weapons at his disposal.

I believe Six spoke too little and Hansen (Chris Evans the main antagonist) spoke too much.

The Gray Man is about a recruited CIA agent named Six. Six was part of a covert team which work under the radar killing people for the government. Six was sent to kill someone but hesitated because there was collateral damage pending if he did. He then decided to kill the target another way. It was there the target called his name and made Six question his orders. Six collected a flash from this victim and gave it to a trusted party to decrypt it so he can know what is going on. His refusal to give up the flash (lying that he did not have it) made the people in government go after him with everything. Calling in a man named Hansen who is not mentally stable to go after Six.

In the end I kept wondering how Miranda (Ana de Armas) was so lucky at times, finding Six and helping him, like she had a tracker on him or something. What would have made this movie amazing would have been if the final showdown between Six and Hansen was like what we saw in Equilibrium, but that’s just me thinking. There the main bad guys and their henchmen could not take on the main character.

You can catch this movie on Netflix, and I am sure a lot of noise will be made about it even though I believe it does not deserve to have that much praise for just being mediocre.

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022)

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022)



3/10



Starring the voices of:

Michael Cera

Ricky Gervais

Mel Brooks

Gabriel Iglesias

Djimon Hounsou

Samuel L. Jackson

 

Directed by Rob Minkoff, Mark Koetsier and Chris Bailey

 

When anything bleeds on your screen like the writer was probably tired and decided to recycle everything he knows about movies. They took all the ideas from the past to the present which they have seen in every movie possible. Not only is this movie boredom on the horizon, it makes you want to punch someone, no creativity at all, it is not funny and the whole training a dog to be a cat samurai is a mess.

Everything about this animation makes you want to locate the people behind it and ask them questions. The animation does not try to pull any surprises. It just coast on the boring idea of they have seen this before, so why not see it again.

You want to mention loose strings this movie has them in loads. You want to talk about lack of ideas this movie is the perfect example for that. This is one of those animations you wish you never saw, and there is one thing I will be grateful for is how forgettable it is, so I do not have to worry about this mistake in the near future.

The story is as dull as they come. A dog who has been pushed around all his life (Hank) decided to become a samurai based on his past encounter with one. Samurais in this world are cats and this dog left his dog land to the cat land to learn how to be one.

He got caught and would have been killed if a high ranking official (Ika Chu) had not hatched a plan where this dog could be of service. Ika Chu an official of the land's Shogun, desires to expand his giant palace, but the land of Kakamucho is in his way. He has tried all he can to get rid of the people, but nothing. Now the people have requested for a new Samurai to protect them from raiders.

Knowing that cats will kill a dog at first sighting he sent Hank to the land to go be its protector (Samurai) believing he will be killed, and he will use that as a reason to raid the town and destroy it. Since it is illegal to kill a Samurai.

Hank goes to fulfill his duty after arguing that he knows nothing about being a Samurai as he came to learn, survived the first encounter to Ika Chu’s displeasure. There Hank met Jimbo a former Samurai who agreed to train Hank so he can defend the town from raiders.

This would have been best done as a thirty-minute short film early morning animation for toddlers who will just like the whole running around and colors. For more grown-up children this would be the best thing to show them to guarantee they will sleep off.

Save yourself the time and the money to see this animation it is not worth it one bit.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

7/10


Starring

Chris Hemsworth

Christian Bale

Tessa Thompson

Jaimie Alexander

Natalie Portman

 

Directed by Taika Waititi

 

Following the footsteps of Ragnarok (2017) was never going to be an easy fit for this movie. But director co-writer Taika Waititi did a nice job. I have to say the comedy in this movie hit home all the time and the fights and the way Thor upgraded the children when he drew power from Zeus Thunderbolt is a sight.

The movie in a way found its own path and made the best of it. It had its own challenges, the screenplay and the inconsistent tone can at times be annoying, but this movie was worth the time I spent seeing it and it will be worth yours too.

Yeap!!! It is finally here. Thanks to all the trailers we know who we were looking forward to seeing and that is Jane. In the comics Jane was an excellent Thor and, in this movie, she was one also. When the two teamed up to take on the creatures in the shadow realm (also fighting alongside them was Valkyrie) was a sight. Two Thors one wielding Stormbreaker and the other Mjolnir.

Thor: Love and Thunder is the 29th Movie in the MCU and the fourth Thor standalone movie in all.

The movie starts with Gorr (Christian Bale) praying to his god for help concerning him and his daughter as they were dying in a barren desert. She died and as he wondered off, he sees an Oasis he rushes in to find his god Rapu having a feast. He still reaches out to him for help with his faith. But Rapu dismisses him and calls his daughter death irrelevant. This angered Gorr who renounces his god which annoys Rapu who tries to kill him. Then the Necrosword (a god killing weapon) called to Gorr as he was dying in Rapu’s hand. Gorr reached and the sword came to him, and he used it to kill Rapu and swore to kill all gods.

Thor on the other side of things was lost trying to find a meaning to his life when he got a distress call and heard about the rampaging Gorr. Gorr had killed many gods in other realms and Asgard is next.

Thor goes to where the last Asgardians are on earth led by King Valkyrie and was surprised to find Jane as a Thor (someone he has not seen in 8 years) there along with Valkyrie fighting Gorr and his creatures. Gorr lost this battle but took all the Asgardian children.

Thor, Jane, Valkyrie and Korg now are trying to recruit other gods to form a team to go after Gorr and save the children.

There is a sad undertone in this movie, Jane is dying, and this could be her last time to feel alive again.

Fun movie and was a fun watch, something I will likely see again.

The Sea Beasts (2022)

The Sea Beast (2022)


 6/10

 


Starring the voices of

Karl Urban

Zaris-Angel Hator

Jared Harris

Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Dan Stevens

Kathy Burke

 

Directed by Chris Williams

 

This movie is a very surprisingly good animation from Netflix and for me the main reason they were able to get this animation to be so nice is that they got a person like Chris Williams on it steering the ship.

The name Chris Williams is familiar to me, and his work is also familiar to anyone who loves Disney works. He has been in the production team of Disney since the time of Mulan (1998), through to Raya and the Last Dragon (2021). Working on movies that you will see threads of in this movie, like Moana set in a world like that of Pirates of the Caribbean. He also picked things from How to Train Your Dragon. He mixed all this up with a new story to give us this action-adventure movie, that is deep with some wholesome family fun.

I liked the excitement when the movie sets off with what looked like a Moby Dick tale. That gave it a more matured start with the movie deciding to shift sticks as Captain Crow showed that he was not as obsessed with the hunt as Captain Ahab was with Moby Dick.

The movie’s main cast is a stow away little girl called Maisie. Maisie lives in an orphanage. It was setup by the King and Queen who care for the orphans of the men and women who died protecting their kingdom from these sea beasts. These hunters sail the seas, and they are funded by the royals to kill all the sea beasts they could find. The aim of this is that the kingdom gets to expand as the creatures are driven back away into the seas.

Maisie breaks out of the orphanage and stows away on the most famous ship in the kingdom the inevitable led by Captain Crow and his adopted son Jacob. When the job of the hunters was being threatened and the life of the captain was at stake, Jacob stood in the middle to wager the Hunters reputation against that of the kingdom’s navy. There is a popular sea creature everyone wants dead, the Red Bluster so the inevitable and the navy go after the creature.

The inevitable were the ones who come across the creature first and they were losing the battle until Maisie made a great decision to save the crew. This decision by this child annoyed Crow who pointed his gun on Maisie while Jacob was trying to stop the mayhem about to begin, the Red Bluster returns and does the unimaginable.

Cool movie and worth every moment I spent seeing it.