Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019)

Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019)

6/10

Starring

Ryan Reynolds

Justice Smith

Kathryn Newton

Bill Nighy

Directed by Rob Letterman

The movie is not bad – childish yes, but it will grow on you.

Detective Pikachu starts small, developing gently as it reveals more into the case to which we are trying to solve. Well, the case to which Tim and Pikachu are trying to solve, what happened to Tim’s father Harry.

The whole Ryan Reynolds voice casting is not as bad as I thought it will be. In fact, it was well done as he also was responsible for the facial expression. And in the end the movie had a surprise that you will not see coming.

One thing I enjoyed most in the movie was the way they made the movie’s last thirty minutes, things moved very fast and were thrilling. You will think Pikachu was one way, then it switches to another and then it ends another way. That twist you will not see coming and was well done.

This being the first live action adaptation of the Pokemon franchise I can say, it is a nice introduction. The CGI was masterful, but I believe for subsequent movies, a better director will bring it to life much better.

The movie plot introduces Tim, who does not have a Pokemon partner like the rest. We learn the resentment he has for this new found way of living was because of his father’s dedication to such a life and work.

He is told of his father’s death (Harry his father was a detective) and when he goes to get his father’s things, he runs into Pikachu, his father’s Pokemon. He could hear Pikachu talk and that spooked him a lot. As humans are unable to understand Pokemon speech.

But Pikachu assures him that his father is not dead and they have to rescue him. The problem is, Pikachu is struggling to remember things as he has amnesia.

Tim gets on the lets save Harry wagon and he and Pikachu (who says he is a detective) starts to investigate. This led them to the man who started all the whole living together with Pokemon lifestyle and his son who is according to the father the man behind everything going wrong,

Although I enjoyed the movie, one thing I could not get over though was the overacting character written into Tim Goodman. This was prominent in two places, when he was asking everyone if they could hear Pikachu talk and when shown a hologram projection of his father’s car crash.

I do not know if I’m to blame his actor, Justice Smith for this or the writers. But the director should have done better with his character, for there were time when his presence was just annoying.

If you are a fan of the Pokemon franchise here is one thing for you to enjoy, if you just want to see a good movie, you can jump on the train too.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

8/10

Starring

Keanu Reeves

Halle Berry

Laurence Fishburne

Mark Dacascos

Directed by Chad Stahelski

This is and will be one of the best movies of 2019. I saw a good movie and i was entertained, this franchise always seems to get better with every movie. You can bet they task themselves, saying we must do better and they do. Mark Dacascos is always an awesome person to watch.

After you have gone half way into this movie, you will be asking this question - “what is with these people and dogs?” also why do people keep wanting to kill a dog someone finds joy in.

“John Wick, excommunicado 20 minutes,” we hear an announcer say as the countdown starts.

The movie starts with a bang as John Wick 3 continues from where the last one stops. Our man Wick is on the run and the time for the hunt is going fast. The bounty on his head for his crime in the continental of killing on the grounds is fourteen million, and some people have chosen not to wait for the countdown to end.

The word is fascinating. Whether you were on the John Wick train from the first movie or you did a quick watch to catch up and join in, you are welcomed with awesomeness. Wick is not made to be untouchable, but un-killable. He tries to roundup things before time goes out and the hunt begins.

The movie plot continues, if we can remember how this all started, some men killed his dog after he found joy in the dog after his wife’s death. John is part of an underground and organized hitmen/hitwomen world. They have their own way of handling things and themselves.

John hunts down the men who killed his dog and kills them all. He continues his revenge in the second part and when he was done, he was betrayed by a friend. An act he took very personal and serious, which led to him killing on continental grounds (which in the world he lives in it is against the rules, something we are informed from the first movie).

This caused the bounty on his head as John is now being hunted by everyone who thinks they can take him down. The movie has some amazing choreography, from knife throwing, hand to hand fight and as we are familiar gun fights that borderline on amazing.

John continues his roundup on favors Sofia (Halle Berry) as he tries to meet with someone who he says will give him guidance, and help him make amends to what he has caused.

Now things are not just bad for Wick, but everyone who helps him. The high table which governs Wick world, are angry and are going after everyone he cares for him.

This is what the movie is about, Wick trying to find the elder.

You should go see this movie and prepare to be entertained. As not just Wick is the bad guy in this movie capable of doing some amazing things, crossing Sofia is not a good thing. I cannot wait to see Chapter 4.

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead (1991)

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead (1991)

5/10

Starring

Christina Applegate

Joanna Cassidy

Keith Coogan

Directed by Stephen Herek

In 1991 Christina Applegate starred in a 1991 coming of age movie called, Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead. The movie is about some kids set on the loose by their mother who went on a trip to Australia.

She did not leave them alone intentionally, like the other movies of the 90s eg Home Alone, these kids are never left on their own intentionally. They new found freedom comes with challenges of the real world. But with some luck and a little adventure, these kids always find away to stay on top of the situation regardless of all the cards falling all about them. That was the recipe of leaving kids alone at home movies.

The movie had many things missing that would have made viewing it interesting and one of the things missing was surprise. There is nothing that happened in this movie that will take you by surprise. The movie did not even try to impress and the movie could not even make you break a smile with the below plot.

A mother of five children was being taken on a trip to Australia by her boyfriend. She leaves her seventeen-year-old daughter in-charge of the home and hired a babysitter to supervise things while she will be gone for two months.

The children thinking this will be the best thing ever, were surprised when the babysitter a presumed sweet old lady, turned to a drill sergeant.

Not that they wished the old lady any harm, but one day they step into her room to find her dead. Not knowing what to do, they asked themselves, will it be better to tell their mother and she comes home immediately or they do something about it and keep their new found freedom. They decided to keep their freedom and this required them dropping the lady’s dead body at the morgue.

Unaware where the money their mother left behind for the two months, they have to find a way to make money so they can eat. This is the summer break and each child wanted to have fun, but it is now up to the eldest to find away to care for their little ones.

In the end of the movie, everything turned out a way that will make you wonder, “what’s the point?”

There seem to be no lesson learned and all the children just had a miraculous we must be responsible behavior. Which is odd, because their irresponsibility and bad behavior seem to just display their stupidity, left home alone doesn’t mean you have to be a dirty slob.

Wild Wild West (1999)

Wild Wild West (1999)

5/10

Starring

Will Smith

Kevin Kline

Kevin Branagh

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

The movie is set in a different some sort of past. Wild Wild West is a Sci-Fi western film that is fun to see on TV. During its initial release though, the movie was not a commercial success and had an average reception from critics. You can say that its antics and drama were way too invested in the plot for the movie to hold strong as a masterpiece. What I mean is, the writers devoted too much time building the perfect plot, adding all the Sci-Fi needed, than they did giving us a fun time at the movies. It was hard to recommend it to a friend to go see at the cinemas.

Regardless of the bad delivery the movie is fun as a TV-movie. Over time it became one of those movies you see because of the same reason that made it not worth seeing in the cinema back then. Now when seeing it on TV you can skip the boring bits.

Here is the plot. General McGrath is believe to be behind a plot to kill the president and take over the United States. All of this happens after the events of the civil war in the US. Soon we get to meet Dr. Arliss Loveless, a man who we believe is dead, (when I say we believe, the movie believes he is dead). He is kept alive by some contraption which allows him to move about. He has survived with only his waist upwards.

The president calls the two best detectives he has Jim West (played by Will Smith, he is a shoot first ask questions later character) and Artemus Gordon (played by Kevin Kline, a detective who uses the art of disguise and science to get his job done), to stop the plans of McGrath.

McGrath who is believe to be the man behind all of this, sent a message to the president that he has one week to hand over the government.

The movie does try to make it seem like the racist nature of things back then were kind of subtle and even though the movie does introduce traces of it, we see Jim West handle himself as a pro above it all.

It is arguable that the production cost on this flick was too high, but a movie in the 90s starring Will Smith was supposed to be a crowd puller. This was to a point, but not to the point of profit

Regardless the movie is fun and you get to enjoy Will Smith and Kevin Kline as officers of the law who are all over the place, trying to save the President of the United States in the most enjoyable fashion.

Big Daddy (1999)

Big Daddy (1999)

6/10

Starring

Adam Sandler

Dylan and Cole Sprouse

Joey Lauren Adams

Jon Stewart

Directed by Dennis Dugan

Going back to see an Adam Sandler movie of the 90s will make you wonder what changed in this guys style of movie making. I guess from seeing it will be his soul. His old movies had soul, there was an attempt to connect with the viewer. In addition to that they always had soundtracks that were well crafted to make you listen and want to own it.

If you can recall any of his old movies you will understand this better. They may not be masterpieces like this one, but they were enjoyable and you go through the moments with him.

Yes, this was not one of his best movies as you can pick the holes in the plot with ease. From the social services inability to hand over a child to his right father properly. To the raising of the child made to seem easy and just a fun ride.

The movie’s fall in love with my best friend’s fiancee sister was lame to the max. If it was not in their intention to speed up their romance, she seemed a little easy to be owned and what a coincidence she happened to be the one in the park that day.

That aside no matter how much you can pick out the silliness in this movie, the fun is watching Sandler’s character Sonny play dad. He sucked at it and no matter how much he tried to make us believe that he had it covered you can easily see that he didn’t.

The movie plot is about a selfish man named Sonny. He was self-centered and was willing to go out of his way to make sure that he did nothing and around him nothing was done as it should be. His girlfriend just dumped him and he was finding it hard to get ahead without her. After ruining his best friend’s birthday surprise and proposal, Sonny decided to take it one step further in his loser antics.

He lied to social services that he was Kevin (his best friend) and that the five-year-old child they dropped at his doorstep (for he and Kevin were roommates) was his.

He did this to make himself seem responsible as he tried to get his now ex-girlfriend back.

She was not impressed by his adoption of a child, and it all blew up in his face. He then decided to keep the child and we get to see the comedy play out in him raising the child and the repercussion of lying.

Like I said, the only fun there is when it comes to Adam Sandler is to go back and see his old movies, because his new ones have not in anyway made any attempt to please.

Cold Pursuit (2019)

Cold Pursuit (2019)

5/10

Starring

Liam Neeson

Tom Bateman

Tom Jackson

Emmy Rossum

Directed by Hans Petter Moland

The end justify the means they always say and so it is with movies. The end, the conclusion, the final curtain is a summary or full-stop to all the mayhem or happenings that we have enjoyed or endured while watching the movie. The ending of this movie was bland, I felt the movie needed a stronger ending because that will have made the whole chaos we saw matter.

The movie is a five and cannot be more because the whole tale was set in a way that you may not be able to predict what will happen next, but you could careless.

The movie did not in anyway try to impress and it played to the tune of the character that Liam Neeson is known for. One way or another Neeson has been typecast-ed as either a parent with some combat knowledge going after people who cross/hurt his child [Taken (2008)]. Or a man who is up against an impossible foe. Here in this movie, he was both.

Based on a 2014 Norwegian film named In Order of Disappearance and it was directed by the same director here. This movie plot is about a man whose son was killed while he was getting an award for citizen of the year. His life started to spin out of control and was attempting to end it when he found out that his son was a victim of a drug cartel.

Finding out the name of the person involved, he started to hunt the men responsible down. The drug cartel unaware of this enemy thinks the culprit is an Indian drug lord. After three of the cartel’s men are killed by the father avenging his son’s death, the cartel goes after the drug lord and kills his son. The drug lord then plans revenge against the cartel leader (Viking) and his family. All this while this father (Neeson) is also planning how to take down the Viking and his family.

Cold Pursuit is what you get when you take different fruits and put them in a blender – the smoothie mix will have its own unique taste an end that you may not have guessed. This movie applies this analogy in two different ways.

The first is in the plot. The plot is about the lives and family of three different people, add the town they are living in and you will get a fourth party that had little or nothing to do with the problem that has enveloped these three families.

The second implementation of this analogy is the genres. This movie is a mix of comedy (black), thriller, drama and sometimes action.

I for one went through this movie because I was curious to see Neeson in a new role, for I had no knowledge of what this movie was about. In the end I was somewhat disappointed and sad that I was not entertained in any way by all that was happening on screen.