Nine Lives (2016)

Nine Lives (2016)

5/10

Starring

Kevin Spacey

Jennifer Garner

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

Lots of movies get bad reviews for not being original or just being downright too predictable. Nine Lives fits into that category, but to be honest, I watched the movie and was laughing all the way through.

The storyline in the movie was crap—no doubt about that. Even a kindergartener could come up with something better. You can call me gullible or lacking good taste, but on a Saturday evening, wondering what to watch and deciding to settle for this wasn’t a bad idea, nor was it a regrettable one.

The movie is, as I said, predictable to the last scene. Nothing new here, folks, and the acting and CGI could have been far better. But I liked it. Maybe I have daddy issues?

Well, back to the movie. Christopher Walken, who happens to be one of my favorite actors, plays a cat whisperer in this movie. We also have Kevin Spacey in the lead role along with Jennifer Garner, so the movie didn’t lack talent. The movie didn’t waste time showcasing its cheesiness, and from the moment it starts, you’ll know you’re in for a B-movie with A-list actors.

It was critically panned for very good reasons because, honestly, the movie is total nonsense. If you’re a cat lover, I’d strongly advise against seeing this movie.
The director wasn’t interested in even trying to make the story presentable. He probably read the script and decided to let the movie go as it wanted. The writers—I don’t even want to believe people were paid for this movie because it cost $30 million to make (not including marketing). From the way the crappy story went, I want to believe more than half of that went into paying the actors. At the box-office, the movie brought in $44 million, making it a loss for the production company.

The movie plot follows a highly focused dad (Kevin Spacey) who puts his family last and his business first. On his child’s birthday, after missing numerous birthdays, he decides to get her what she wants—a cat. He goes to a cat shop and buys her one. On his way home, he stops by the office. An accident occurs, and when he wakes up, he’s a cat, and his body is in a coma. The man (Christopher Walken) he bought the cat from informs him that he must be good to his family if he wants to get his body back.

I don’t worry for any of the actors because I don’t expect anyone to go see this movie. Even though I saw it and found it funny, I can’t, in good conscience, tell anyone to spend their hard-earned money to see this movie with their family.

The BFG (2016)

The BFG (2016)

6/10

Starring

Mark Rylance

Ruby Barnhill

Directed by Steven Spielberg

The Big Friendly Giant (BFG for short) was, not surprisingly, a good film—and also not surprisingly, it flopped at the box office. From what I’ve heard, the movie will be Steven Spielberg’s biggest flop. But Disney has had a good run this year with Captain America: Civil War (2016), Finding Dory (2016), Zootopia (2016) and Jungle Book (2016), so I don’t expect this to affect their profits.
The movie had great CGI, and the acting of the child actor Ruby Barnhill was masterful. The cinematography and CGI-to-live-action mix are worth noting—it was well done.

The issue is the story. The plot isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not a crowd-puller. I’m just seeing the movie now since its release in July, and to be honest, if I’d missed it, I wouldn’t have felt it.
When it comes to the directing and the masterful cinematography, I have to say Steven is still as good as expected. He and his team took an old-time story with its animation and turned it into a comedy-adventure film for the family.

The moment the movie started and I sat down to see what it was about, I didn’t move from where I was until the credits started rolling. Another downer in the movie is the ending, when the humans had to face off against the giants. That last act was a complete anticlimax to an otherwise good movie.
I totally expected more from the movie, but it seems Spielberg was focused on making a family-friendly film that any child could watch.

That alone is the reason why many of the things you’d expect from cannibalistic, human-eating giants were totally absent from this movie. Even though they wanted to keep it family-friendly, I believe the ending could still have been fun if the giants were allowed to put up a little fight to save their hides instead of the walkover we had the not-so-good pleasure of seeing.

The movie plot shows two worlds: the world of the giants and that of humans. The giants eat humans if they can, except for one who happens to be more of a vegan. He’s a dreamcatcher and a dream blower. While giving humans dreams as they sleep, he’s spotted by a little girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill). Afraid that she’ll tell people, he takes her from her bed to the giant world.
There, they become friends and decide to work together to stop the other giants.

A good family movie for kids, but it won’t be much fun for adults. 

Masterminds (2016)

Masterminds (2016)

3/10

Starring

Zach Galifianakis

Owen Wilson

Kristen Wiig

Kate McKinnon

Directed by Jared Hess

Masterminds is a movie I’d like to forget I saw. It wasn’t just a waste of time but also a waste of effort on the part of the writers, producers, and director.

I don’t believe Zach Galifianakis’s style of comedy is worthy of a full-length film where he stars as the lead. I enjoyed his part in his breakthrough movie, The Hangover (2009). There, he wasn’t the lead or the main character but part of a pack, and his dumbness was enjoyable as it played to the movie’s strength. Here, his dumbness is overly pronounced on screen, drowning out any possibility of overlooking it.

Since The Hangover (2009), I’ve struggled to warm up to Zach’s style of comedy, where he plays a dumb character in serious situations.

Backing him up in this movie are Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon—all of whom added to the waste of time I felt watching this movie. None of these characters delivered a memorable performance or even one worth noting as standing out.

In addition to these, there’s Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis. You’d think with all these actors, there’d be at least one scene where they delivered or made me laugh hard, but no such moment existed.

The cast of the movie may be well-known names in comedy, but the comedy in this movie is dull. The moment the jokes show up, you start to smile, and by the time they land, your smile is gone. The movie couldn’t drive home a single scene of laughter. The characters were over-the-top silly, and the plot wasn’t strong, as the story was wacky. If you add those two together, we have a wacky movie with extremely silly characters, making sure you regret every minute spent watching it.

The movie plot centers around David (Zach Galifianakis), a guard at an armored car company. He’s set to get married but has the hots for his co-driver, Kelly (Kristen Wiig). Kelly always fantasized about stealing the money they transport, though she never intended to go through with it.
She resigned from her job due to lack of fulfillment, got a less fulfilling job, and was depressed when her brother-in-law, Steve (Owen Wilson), convinced her to use her connections to pull off a robbery of the armored truck company.

She recalled David, whom she knew had feelings for her, and decided to play on those feelings. With Steve’s help, they convinced David to rob his company (which he did), bring the money to them, and run away to Mexico until the coast was clear, at which point Kelly would join him.

Steve and Kelly turned on him, though Kelly felt guilty about it, and Steve ratted David out to the cops.

Well, you’d have to see the movie to see how it all went down—though I strongly advise you not to.