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 out for over an hour before you can fully grasp what’s going on.
The movie wastes too much time building and arranging its foundation that it sometimes forgets to carry the audience along.
With all the mystery thrown in your face, robots being blown up, and an impending doom ahead, you’re often left playing catch-up. The directing spends so much time telling us about something happening or that has happened in Tomorrowland that you get bored waiting to actually see it.

That said, the movie is a science fiction adventure film that I did enjoy. Disney’s hope of turning another one of their rides, like Pirates of the Caribbean, into a movie franchise failed. Tomorrowland wasn’t financially profitable and wasn’t well-received by audiences or critics.

The movie’s plot goes like this: an adult Frank (George Clooney) is telling a tale of how he ended up in a place called Tomorrowland.
We see him as a little boy when a girl named Athena recruits young Frank by giving him a pin with a “T” on it. This pin allows Frank to enter a new world where science thrives, complete with flying cars and everything you’d imagine a futuristic society could have.
Frank’s tale is interrupted by another young lady named Casey. She starts to tell us how she met Frank, and it’s her story that we follow for most of the movie.

Athena sneaks another pin into Casey’s bag. When Casey touches the pin, she’s transported to Tomorrowland.
When the pin’s battery runs out, she searches online for answers about it.

Her search leads her—and us—to encounter some angry robots, and we become aware that there’s another side to the world we live in. Athena saves Casey from being killed by robots and takes her to meet the adult Frank. This brings more robots chasing after Frank and Casey, with Casey wondering why this is happening and what Frank did to get kicked out of Tomorrowland.

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

As I said earlier, the movie is visually entertaining, and all the fun it could have offered is packed into the visual masterpiece Disney created.
I enjoyed the movie, but I can see why others might not have. I see this as one of those films that’s good enough to watch anytime, though it’s a shame it takes so long to really get going.

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 as stupid, they don’t try to be subtle.
The Predator is a movie that reeks of, “the audience won’t mind if we just slip in some impossible, stupid ideas here and there.”
It’s an action movie with no class. The Predator is a science fiction action comedy and the fourth movie in the series (not counting the Alien vs. Predator crossovers).

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

The movie’s plot goes like this: in Mexico, an army ranger sniper named Quinn and his team are on a hostage retrieval mission. There, they’re attacked by the Predator (an alien race of hunters). Quinn incapacitates the Predator, steals its armor, and mails it to his home. The Predator is then captured and placed in a secret base.

Here’s where something stupid happens. Imagine this scenario: a woman who happens to be some kind 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’s cowering in the corner, naked. The alien leaves, the lady gets dressed, picks up a tranquilizer gun, and starts chasing the alien. Why is she chasing something that just killed a dozen people right in front of her?
From that point on, I knew this movie wants you to suspend all reason.

It then complicates things by changing the Predator’s backstory as we knew it. We find out that the Predators we’re used to seeing in the previous movies are just hybrids, and there are more advanced ones.

What Quinn sent home was decoded by his autistic son, and the alien who escaped was after it. The more advanced Predators were also after the missing gear Quinn stole, and we have an army that seems confused about whose side they’re on.
You see, they speculate that the Predator they found was a deserter who wanted to help them defeat the bigger ones.
Question for the writers of this film: why would the army sedate and plan to experiment on their supposed savior?

The movie doesn’t try to improve on the mess it creates—it just dives right into it with no better ideas in mind.
I won’t be recommending this movie to anyone. Just don’t bother.

The movie is directed by Shane Black, a name we’re familiar with, 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 twists and turns for its own good?
The answer is yes.
A Simple Favor decided to be one of those movies that keeps twisting and turning, trying hard to shake off the viewer. That said, holding on to see how this movie ends isn’t a difficult task. For me, the movie couldn’t add enough thrill or fun in its twists and turns to make up for the time I spent watching it.

When things in this movie get a little dry, the director (Paul Feig) and his writers decide that imaginations and flashbacks are the best way to fill the void. Even though this movie seems to have good reviews, I believe it wasn’t worth the experience. I was left wondering what the reviews were even talking about. That said, I agree with them that the leads, Anna Kendrick (Stephanie) and Blake Lively (Emily), were the best thing this movie had to offer. But note, even they couldn’t make up for the lack of enthusiasm this movie had.

A Simple Favor plays out like this: there’s one intelligent psycho who has all the plans figured out from the beginning. Then, to spice things up, sometimes she doesn’t have everything figured out.

The plot is about two women who couldn’t be more different from each other, even though both have dark secrets best left in the dark. They both have sons going to the same school, and a playdate brings the mothers together. Soon, they become friends.

Stephanie is a vlogger and lives off the life insurance she got from her husband’s death. Emily, on the other hand, is still married, and she and her husband are dead broke.
One day, Emily calls for a simple favor. She asks Stephanie to watch her son for her while she’s out of town. Days pass, and Stephanie hasn’t heard from Emily, so she decides to speak up. She reports Emily’s disappearance to the cops and Emily’s husband (who was out of the country at the time), but nothing comes of it.

Things then get twisted when a body washes up on shore. It’s the body of a woman whose DNA and physical appearance match Emily’s.
Now, Stephanie decides to investigate Emily’s life, hoping these clues will lead her to find Emily’s killer.

I think the reviews are huge fans of the lead ladies because the movie itself doesn’t deliver the same kind of fun they claim to have gotten from 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, sitting through another Rowan Atkinson movie is always a delight. His high-class (Mr. Bean-style) packaged stupidity isn’t something I get to see in movies regularly. Over the years, I’ve lost my taste for action spy movies, but spy comedies are always a treat.
That said, this movie wasn’t as good as Johnny English (2003) or Johnny English Reborn (2011), but it still had the barrel of laughs I needed.

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

Back to make sure English does what’s 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’s nobody left to save the day. As we all know, English is an accidental spy and a complete fool. He’s always the last person the British Secret Service calls, and he never misses that call.

This time, the British Secret Service has a problem related to the present age: cyberattacks. They’ve been hacked, and all the names of their agents have been leaked. The attackers continue to cause trouble, and now they have no choice but to recall all the old agents.

In a room with the old agents, English accidentally takes them all out, leaving him as the only one standing. When he’s on the case, he calls for his old colleague Bough, and together they begin investigating, looking for the villain behind the cyber threat.
This trail leads them down a path where English’s stupidity and skills come in handy, even though they’re often a distraction from his actual mission.

Apprehending the man he’s pinpointed as the mastermind behind the crime is a Herculean task because the suspect is popular and a favorite of someone higher up than English.

My criticism of this movie is that they didn’t even attempt to make the plot good enough for a second viewing. The movie is fun to watch, but I can guarantee you won’t be rushing for seconds. The plot is weak, the villain is very annoying, and the movie as a whole is below average.
But like I said, it had the amount of laughs 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, made sure he packed all the necessary elements into this cinematic masterpiece. The action thriller tells a dark tale, mixing it with some ironic comedic undertones and featuring a stellar cast of thrilling actors.
Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman were top-billed 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 acting power justice. McAvoy is Scottish, but here he portrays an American whose life is turned upside down, flipped back up, and then blown up in his face.

Wanted is based on the comic book miniseries Wanted (2003–04) by Mark Millar and J. G. Jones. The comic itself took a different path than the movie. The film is well-written, maintaining the comic’s tone while diverging onto its own path, lifting only certain elements from the source material.

The movie follows the life of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy). Gibson is what many would 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 works, as his boss is always on his case.

Aside from this, there’s a man being killed. We’re shown a world where this man is faster, stronger, and able to perform amazing feats at the drop of a hat.
Wesley is 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 killed earlier in the movie. The person who killed the man Wesley now believes to be his father is Cross, and they want to train Wesley to take him down.

Wesley’s training is integral to the fun the movie delivers. We see him shoot the wings off flies, learn how to bend bullets, and master his newfound abilities.
Wesley is keen on getting revenge for his father’s death, but to do so, he’s first thrust into a series of murders. Soon, he’s ready—but the twist is, he isn’t fully prepared for the truth and what lies ahead on the path he’s chosen to follow.

Wanted is a great action movie, and it’s one I’ll definitely watch again in the future.

Jumper (2008)

Jumper (2008)

6/10

Starring

Hayden Christensen

Jamie Bell

Rachel Bilson

 

 

Directed by Doug Liman

Here’s a movie that didn’t get the celebration it deserved. I can throw in some criticism, like the plot feeling rushed and Hayden Christensen not being the strongest actor.
Still, the movie managed to pack enough excitement into its fast-paced plot for me to enjoy watching its over-an-hour of action more than once. Many wanted the movie to delve deeper into the details of the 1992 Steven Gould novel it’s based on. Even though this movie draws from the book, it feels like Doug Liman and the screenplay writers just skimmed Gould’s work. That said, the screenplay was good enough for me.

There’s a limit to how much you can develop characters, and this movie didn’t even try, to be honest. But its packed plot was interesting enough to keep me engaged.

A lot could have been done to glue things together and make this movie far better, but I guess they did enough. Even though the movie didn’t bother with character development, it made up for it in action.

The movie introduces the lead, David (Hayden Christensen), who, while trying to retrieve a snow globe for his friend Millie (Rachel Bilson), falls into a frozen lake. Instead of drowning, he teleports to his school library.
At that point, David realizes he has the power to go anywhere he wants. So, like many would, he robs banks, masters his teleportation ability, and lives life to the fullest. He stays off the grid for eight years, living large—until one jump too many puts him on the radar of a team called the Paladins.

The Paladins are a secret society of religious fanatics who track down and kill "Jumpers"—people like David. Their reasoning? Jumpers are a blasphemy to God’s omnipresence.

The lead Paladin hunting David is Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson), who’s puzzled about how David stayed hidden for eight years.
David runs into Roland and barely escapes. He makes the mistake of reconnecting with Millie and tries to run away with her. During their romantic trip, he meets another Jumper (David never knew there were others), who explains everything about Jumpers and Paladins.
David makes another mistake by trying to rescue Millie, which leads to his arrest. He escapes in a way you’ll want to see for yourself, only to discover that much of his life is built on lies.

I enjoyed watching Jumper back then, and I still do now. I think you will too.