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 dam right too predictable, Nine Lives fit into that category, but to be honest I watched the movie and I was laughing all through.

The story line in the movie was crap no doubt about that, even a child in kindergarten can come up with better. You can call me gullible or lacking of good taste, but on a Saturday evening and wondering what to see and deciding to settle for this was not a bad idea, neither 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. It could be 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 and we had Kevin Spacey play the lead role along with Jennifer Garner so the movie didn’t lack talent. The movie didn’t waste time to showcase its cheesiness and the moment the movie starts you will know you are in for a B-movie with A-list actors.

Critically panned for very good reasons because I have to be honest the movie is total nonsense and if you are a cat lover I will strongly advise against seeing this movie.

The director was not interested in even trying to make the story presentable, he probably read the script and decided to let the move go as it wants. The writers, I do not want to believe there were people paid for this movie because it cost $30 million to make (not including marketing), and from the way the crappy story went I want to believe more than half of that went into paying the actors. In the Box Office, the movie brought in $44 million, making it a loss for the production company.

The movie plot has a highly focused dad (Kevin Spacey) who puts his family last and his business first. On his child’s birthday and after missing numerous birthdays he decided to get her what she wants, a cat. He went to a cat shop and bought her a cat, on his way home he branched at the office. An accident occurred in the office and when he woke up he was a cat and his body was in a coma. The man (Christopher Walken) whom he bought from the cat from informs him that he must be good to his family if he wants to get his body back.

I worry not for any of the actors because I do not expect anyone to go see this movie, even though I saw it and found it funny, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to go give their good 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 not surprised that it flopped in the box office. From what I heard the movie will be Steven Spielberg 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 do not expect this to affect their profit.

The movie had great CGI and the acting of the child actor Ruby Barnhill was masterful, the movie cinematography and CGI to live-action mix is what noting that it was well done.

The issue is the story. The plot is not bad, but it is definitely not a crowd puller. I’m just seeing the movie now since its release in July and to be honest if I miss this movie I will not feel it.

When it comes to the directing of the movie 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 to a comedy adventure film for the family.

The moment the movie started and I sat to see what it was about I have to say I didn’t move from where I was until the credits started rolling. Another downer in the movie is the end when the humans had to face up with the giants, that last act was a complete anti-climax to an already good movie.

I totally expected more from the movie, but it seems Spielberg was interested in making a family friendly movie where any child can go see it.

That alone is the reason why many of the things you will expect from cannibal eating giants was totally absent from this movie. Even though they wanted to make the movie family friendly I believe the ending will still be fun, if the giants were allowed to put up a little fight to save their hide instead of the walk over 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 the humans if they could, except one who happened to be more of a vegan, he is a dreamcatcher and also a dream blower. While giving humans dreams as they sleep he was spotted by a little girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), afraid that she will tell people, he took her from her bed to the giant world.

There they became friends and decided to work together to stop the other giants.

Good family movie for the kids, but will not 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 will like to forget I saw. It was not just a waste of time, but also a waste of effort on the part of the writers, producers and director.

I do not believe Zach Galifianakis style of comedy is worthy of a full-length film which stars him as the lead. I enjoyed his part in his breakthrough movie The Hangover (2009), there he was not 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 any possibility of you just overlooking it.

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

To back him up in this movie we have Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon all of which added to the waste of time I felt seeing this movie. None of these characters provided a memorable performance or even a performance worth noting as the one thing that stood out in this movie.

In addition to these was Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis, which you will think with all of these actors there will be a scene in the movie where they delivered or made me laugh hard, but no such existed.

The cast of the movie maybe well-known names in comedy, but the comedy in this movie is dull. The moment the jokes show up, you start to smile and when it finally lands, you smile is gone. The movie could not drive home a single scene of laughter. The characters in the movie were over the top silly and the plot was not 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 you spend seeing this movie.

The movie plot centered around David (Zach Galifianakis) a guard at an armored car company. He was set to get married, but had the hots for his co-driver Kelly (Kristen Wiig). Kelly always fantasized stealing the money they move, a fantasy she never intended to go through with.

She resigned from her job from lack of fulfillment, got a less fulfilling job and was depressed when her brother-in-law Steve (Owen Wilson) convinced 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 and with the help of Steve they convinced David to rob his company (which he did) bring the money to them and run away to Mexico until the coast and Kelly will come be with him there.

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

Well you will have to see the movie to see how it all went down although I strongly advise you not to.