Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

7/10

Starring

Tom Holland

Michael Keaton

Jon Favreau

Directed by Jon Watts

The best description for this movie is fun. Tom Holland plays a much younger Spider-Man than the previous two incarnations of the character. His portrayal is the most fun and the closest to the spirit of Spider-Man compared to the earlier versions.
This is the third reboot of the franchise, and it’s one of the best comic reboots I’ve seen. Much of the drama from the first version and the thriller elements of the second reboot were removed, replaced with fun and adventure. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a fitting welcome into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

There’s never a moment when you’re not rooting for Peter, especially when he’s taking on the villain and his goons. You’ll find yourself sucked in as he uses his web-slinging skills, talks to himself, and handles things in his boyish way—keeping you grinning all the way through the movie. This is the Spider-Man we know and love.

The plot starts with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) reliving his introduction to the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016). We see him record the whole incident, from when he was called to help to when he took Captain America’s shield. But things become boring for him as, months after that incident, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) never calls him for another mission.

Peter decides to wait, and his waiting leads him to encounter a group of men using alien technology to design weapons and sell them on the black market. These men are led by Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton), who lost a contract to dispose of this alien tech to Tony Stark. Adrian decides to keep some of the tech for himself, using it to design weapons for sale and to create his Vulture suit.

Peter informs Stark about this new development in his neighborhood, but when he doesn’t see any action from Stark or the government, he decides to handle it himself.

The presence of Keaton as the Vulture will have you on the edge of your seat. If you’re familiar with the Spider-Man animation where Vulture was introduced as a youth-sucking villain, you’ll be surprised. The Vulture in the movie stays closer to the original Adrian Toomes, where the youth-sucking aspect is part of the character’s criminal biography, not a main theme.
Michael Keaton, as usual, outdoes himself, delivering a performance that will be remembered for a long time. He’s proven over time to be worth casting, from his early days to now.

The movie’s feel and overall outlook will have you planning a second viewing. It’s a great movie to watch anytime, and it’s perfect for the whole family.

Baby’s Day Out (1994)

Baby’s Day Out (1994)

7/10

Starring

Adam Robert Worton and Jacob Joseph Worton

Joe Mantegna

Brian Haley

Joe Pantoliano

Directed by Patrick Read Johnson

This was the good old ‘90s, when we didn’t need explosions or too much CGI to make us laugh. The characters were real and relatable, but the adventures were unbelievable. That was the style of the late John Hughes, who, through the ‘80s and ‘90s, gave us numerous films (Home Alone is one of them) that will forever be memorable in our hearts.

Baby’s Day Out was one of Hughes’ best movies, true to his style. I watched it enough times growing up, and I didn’t think that rewatching it twenty-three years after its release would still have me laughing my head off at the unrealistic and unbelievable adventure the baby takes us on.

Our adventure in this movie starts with a mother craving the attention other babies get from having their pictures in the local newspaper. She decides to hire a popular and expensive photography crew, hoping their track record of getting pictures in the paper will work for her baby.

A crew of bandits sees the same opportunity to kidnap a wealthy baby, and our mother and her husband are more than wealthy—and popular enough—to whet their appetite. They first hijack the photography crew, then go to the rich home. Using the mother’s obsession with perfection to distract her and her staff, they kidnap Baby Bink.

Now they have the baby, but here’s the catch: it’s a three-man crew where only one is intelligent enough to plan, and the other two aren’t that bright. The baby manages to crawl away from them while one of the bandits, who was supposed to read to the baby to make him fall asleep, ends up falling asleep himself. Now, the crew is chasing a crawling baby as he gets into malls, buses, taxis, zoos, and other places.

What I love about the bandits is their character. They’re not so bright that it’s unbelievable they’ve survived this long. They’re the right mix of dull and smart, and you can swear you’ve met someone like them at work or in your group of friends. The events and adventures are set up in such a way that you have to turn off your brain and just enjoy. Don’t bother yourself with how the baby found the old people’s home, how the lady on the bus didn’t notice the weight change in her bag, or why the adults at the filming didn’t care that a baby was crawling away. Just watch the movie and be entertained.

Upon its release, the movie was a critical and commercial failure for the late John Hughes, who had been behind great films like Home Alone, 101 Dalmatians, Flubber, and Maid in Manhattan, to name a few. However, the movie was a hit in Asia. As the late Robert Ebert commented, it was even more popular than Star Wars in Asia during its release. The movie also inspired numerous remakes in different Asian countries.

In Nigeria, where I’m from, the movie is seen among my peers as a great comedy. It made us laugh, and we all took turns rewatching it to make sure we didn’t miss a single scene of laughter.

Despicable Me 3 (2017)

Despicable Me 3 (2017)

6/10

Starring the voice of

Steve Carell

Kristen Wiig

Trey Parker

Miranda Cosgrove

Steve Coogan

Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Baida

I never thought I’d get to a point where the Minions would start to become annoying… and I’m not there yet, meaning I’ll gladly sit through another Despicable Me movie.
Illumination Entertainment has created a forever-enjoyable cast of characters that have become part of the expected fun when you take your family to see a movie. The family of Gru is like a perfect cup of coffee: Gru is the dark brew, his daughters are the sugar, and the Minions are the cream on top.

In the last Despicable Me movie, we were introduced to a new character, Lucy. Her role in the second movie was instrumental to the fun, and the Minions kind of took a backseat to the kids. In this movie, however, her presence feels more like a distraction and doesn’t add much to the enjoyable tone.
She and Dru (Gru’s twin brother) are like a triangle instrument in an already complete orchestra. Their contributions, whether in or out of tune, are forgettable when everyone else is playing their part so well. To top it off, we have a villain who loves the ‘80s music scene, and his musical score has me nodding along every time he appears.

I found myself looking forward to seeing this villain more than Lucy or Dru, and to my delight, the movie starts on his turf. We see our “bad guy” steal the biggest diamond in the world, and he doesn’t just steal it—he does it in style. Dancing, chewing gum, and rocking an all-‘80s hairstyle, this dude is off the hook during the heist.
On his tail are Gru and Lucy, who are members of the Anti-Villain League, but our “bad guy,” Balthazar Bratt, to my delight, gets away with the diamond.

Without giving too much away, let me skip ahead a bit. Gru gets a visit from a lawyer telling him he has a twin brother, Dru, who wants to meet him. After drilling his mother for the truth about his brother’s existence, he packs up the family to go see him. By this time, the Minions have left Gru, as they miss the good old days when they were the bad guys, not the ones chasing them down.

Upon meeting his brother, Gru discovers that Dru is his opposite in character and that their father was a world-class criminal. Dru is a disappointment to their now-late father because he wants to be a villain but is too scared to pull it off.
Gru and Dru’s father left behind a huge estate in Dru’s care, and Gru decides to use this new access to seek revenge on Bratt and steal back the diamond.

The animation is colorful, and there are enough silly scenes in the movie to keep you laughing. This 3D animation is the fourth in the Despicable Me film franchise and Illumination Entertainment’s eighth animated film. It will be followed in 2020 by Minions 2, and expect to see a Despicable Me 4 because this movie is doing very well at the box office.