Angry Birds 2 (2019)

Angry Birds 2 (2019)

5/10

Starring the voices of

Jason Sudeikis

Josh Gad

Leslie Jones

Bill Hader

Directed by Thurop Van Orman

I was not a big fan of the 2016 Angry Birds video game animated full-length adaptation. It was mediocre from my view, but this one here is just a little step up and I found it hard to keep my eyes open through the whole movie.

I was not expecting much from the movie itself based on the way I felt about the slapstick comedy that was portrayed in the first adaptation. If you liked that slapstick comedy way of delivering this movie in the first part, then this part two is for you. Because we get to see another island run by eagles who just want to destroy the other two islands (that of the birds and pigs).

So, the focus is not just on the birds, but the pigs also joined in as both joined forces to take on the eagles. If you like me are wondering aren’t eagles also birds, and if the eagles want the bird island so much couldn’t they have flown there like Mighty Eagle? Well, the animation is for children and that is just my adult mind thinking too much.

The movie plot continues from the first movie Red is a hero now and he is happy not to be alone anymore and just glad to be needed. The birds continue their battle with the pigs, until one day when the pigs found a huge ice ball hurled at them. They investigated and discovered that there was another island filled with eagles wanting to destroy theirs and the birds.

They offered a truce with the birds so they can face this new enemy together. Red afraid that this truce will end the battle with the pigs and will mean an end to his stardom as a hero, did not want this truce to happen. It was forced on him by the pigs themselves as they showed evidence of the coming doom for the bird island when they raided his home.

Red along with Chuck, Bomb and Silver (Chuck’s sister and later on Red’s love interest) went along with the pigs to their island. Now the pigs have stepped up, using very next level sophisticated equipment. They developed a loopy plan to stop the eagles, but like I said you have to suspend your adult mind as you watch all this unfold.

In the end, I was not impressed and I do not see this movie being as commercially successful to lead to a third wave and maybe that is a good thing.

Long Shot (2019)

Long Shot (2019)

6/10

Starring

Charlize Theron

Seth Rogen

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Long Shot is a very lovely movie. And Lovely, is the best adjective that describes this movie. The last time a movie made me feel like this I was watching, The Intern which was written and directed by Nancy Meyers, and starred Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway.

The movie is soft, simple and just glides through the scenes with grace.

We have an odd couple pairing in Seth Rogan and Charlize Theron’s characters. But the way the movie is written on how both handled their differences is what made this movie just so comfortable to watch. Both of them are magically together on screen and it made the whole experience especially with the way Theron handled her role as Secretary of State so magnificent and very inviting.

This romantic comedy starts with the introduction to Fred (Seth Rogan), who is a journalist and his main job is covering the weird and overlooked part of the world. Doing so has not made him much money or fame, but has made him comfortable with his life and heart. Problem with him is that, Fred has now developed a judgmental view of the world, not willing to compromise for anything. It is because of this view that he resigned from his job when it was bought over by a large conglomerate.

Charlotte (Charlize Theron) is the current secretary of state. She just got informed by the sitting president that he will not be running for re-election. He wants to endorse her as the candidate for the job, and he needs her to play nice until then.

Charlotte unlike Fred has had to deal with compromise and lying because of her job in politics and this presidency is the next best thing for her.

What brought the two together is something that was in their past. Charlotte used to babysit Fred when he was younger and Fred has always had a crush on her.

When Fred resigned his friend decided to take him to a fundraiser he was going to just to take his mind off his present problem. It was at the fundraiser that Charlotte saw Fred and recognized him. They started talking again and she realized how easy it was to talk to him and after reading some of his articles hired him to come work for her as her speech writer.

This was how the two traveled the world, working on her save the planet deal which she is trying to get 100 countries to join in. How the two later became lovers and how they dealt with all the things that come with being in the limelight is what you get to enjoy when you see this movie.

The movie got critical acclaim even though it was not a financial success. More people need to see this movie because as far as romantic comedy goes, this is top notch.

Otherhood (2019)

Otherhood (2019)

5/10

Starring

Angela Bassett

Patricia Arquette

Felicity Huffman

Directed by Cindy Chupack

Otherhood is a movie you watch when you have time left in the day and you just want to see something nice and homely.

The movie is not spectacular and the plot had a weird sort of ending. I believe the writers could have done better in piecing it together. There is nothing new to learn here and you can argue that in the middle the movie got away from itself when the mothers decided to go all out immature. Plus, the way the movie ended, you can say the first half of the movie is all the fun the movie has to offer.

Otherhood, speaks the reality of parenting. No matter how much you try, parents always mess up their kids. Either from too much love, or too little. Not pushing them enough or pushing them too much. The most prominent one which affects almost all of us is, allowing the parent’s insecurities be the ruler they use to train their child.

All these style of bad parenting and their repercussions were in display in this movie. The movie has one thing to offer though, three ladies (Angela Bassett as Carol, Patricia as Gillian and Felicity Huffman as Helen) delivering stunning performances that would make you sit through the movie, just because they are there.

The movie introduces the three friends who are mothers and their sons who have been friends from childhood. The sons have distant themselves from their mothers for reasons you will get to see when you watch the movie. The mothers believing that they have made all the sacrifices to care their children should not be made to feel like they have failed.

The mothers hang together on Mother’s Day yearly and on this day they decided to go to New York and see their sons. A decision they made on the whim and neither was prepared for what was install when they get to see their sons.

They discover that they do not know their sons as much as they thought and that they are part of the reasons why their sons do not want to have anything to do with them anymore.

The movie is based on Whatever Makes You Happy by William Sutcliffe, and it is written and directed by Cindy Chupack (who has written for Sex and the City and Modern Family).

You can catch this movie on Netflix, and like I said above just make sure you are on the line to see it when you have exhausted all other viewing options.

Shaft (2019)

Shaft (2019)

7/10

Starring

Samuel L. Jackson

Jessie T. Usher

Regina Hall

Alexandra Shipp

Richard Roundtree

Directed by Tim Story

I can see why this movie was not a hit, because it is so good and so true to what humor really is that all these “woke” crowd of this century will have a problem with it.

The comedy is homely and the whole film is one joy ride to cinematic promise land. Samuel L. Jackson felt so much at home in the character that you can understand when he implied – if James Bond was real, he would have wanted to be him.

The movie also throws some gags at the time a newscaster made a mistake calling Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne. Whats not to like in this movie? Answer is, nothing.

The film stars Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft II, Jessie T. Usher as Shaft III, and Richard Roundtree as Shaft (the original).

This is the fifth film in the Shaft series and a sequel to the 2000 film with the same title, which also stars Samuel L. Jackson.

The movie plot starts in 1989 with us seeing the “equal opportunity ass-whopper” better known as Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), save his girl and son from a shootout. His girl gets upset and leaves him, taking their son with her. She raised him by herself, telling him that his dad ran from him and wanted nothing to do with him growing up. Her way of raising him right was to make sure that his as much anti-Shaft as she can.

When one of his (Shaft Jr A.K.A JJ) childhood friend died in what is tagged a drug overdose, JJ suspects foul play and decided to investigate. JJ is currently working with the Bureau as a computer analyst and his investigation got him an ass-whopping. He decided to reach out to the only PI he knows, his father for help.

On hearing the tale Shaft, could tie the case to one to which he was already working on, a drug kingpin he is trying to bring down.

They work together on the case and their bonding and Shaft showing JJ the ropes is what makes this movie so interesting. The dialogue is fun to listen to and the whole get together which brought about the introduction of Shaft snr, was just grand. His presence was made to make much of an impact as he is brought in like 20 minutes to the end of the whole movie.

There is no way you can watch this movie and not enjoy it. Everything about this movie screams do a sequel, but as we can get from the lackluster performance in the box office, I do not think that is going to happen.

Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

5/10

Starring

Jessica Rothe

Israel Broussard

Suraj Sharma

Steve Zissis

Directed by Christopher Landon

Get ready for some loose threads and some panic about multiverse/time loop mumbo jumbo that will make you think you are set for a thriller. Like in the first ten minutes into the movie they psych us out about the whole universe collapsing. They pull a thread of two entities that are not supposed to exist in the same universe and something horrible is going to happen, then whoosh we are in another universe.

That’s how the movie started, we are in another universe where things are different and Tree’s mum is still alive. Tree from the universe in the first movie is propelled into another universe where her mum is alive and people whom she knows are different.

Problem here in this movie is, instead of the writers to find another way to play this we get to go through Tree’s life again, which is a bore.

In this version of this Happy Death Day, the plot has Tree making it to the next day. Everything would have been cool, but Ryan Carter’s friend in his panic to save himself caused her to relieve the day. Not the day after her time loop, but the day she desperately wanted to get away from, her birthday. Which if we recall was same day in the first movie when the time loop occurred for her.

The movie kind of expanded on some of the characters from the previous movie while keeping the leads in the first movie at some focus.

We also get to see the scientific jargons behind the time loop, and I can tell you the jargons is just as stupid as they get. So the makers of the first movie felt the time loop that was present in the first movie was not enough so they added multiverse. Yes, get ready for an onslaught of multiverse theories, and in order of our Tree to get things going the way she wants she has to keep killing herself.

Tree comes up with new amazing ways to kill herself, and all of that was just a bore. The whole emotional way the movie just piles up Tree and her family reunion was just overplayed.

That aside, the plot of the movie was not as engaging as the first movie because we already now have an idea of how things will play out. It was not fun to find out the loop was because of an experiment that went awfully wrong.

Just see the first movie only and save yourself the pain of seeing this addition to the tale.

Financially this movie was not as good a take back for the studio like the first movie and I’m glad because we are going to be saved from seeing a third part.

Happy Death Day (2017)

Happy Death Day (2017)

6/10

Starring
Jessica Rothe
Israel Broussard


Directed by Christopher Landon


Happy Death Day is a Groundhog day kind of movie and its focus here is on a girl who is just as ass and deserves every bad thing that comes to her. I like the way the movie did not make the whole time loop stop the moment she decided to be good. It only ended when she figured out who is behind her deaths and she stops the person.

The movie has a long drag before you get to the point when she finally starts to use her head to solve the problem at hand. That long drag could have had me nodding off if I was not dead curious to see who was behind the whole menace.

The movie gives a sense of a cheap thrill, so you just have to bear with that when you are watching. You could get from the acting of some of the characters and the setting that this was not a huge financial investment from the major studios.

The plot starts with our lead Threresa (or Tree) waking up in the dorm room of her classmate with what we presume was a night of drunken sex. The young man seems like a nice guy, goofy looking gentleman named Carter. He helps her out, but she dashes out of his room and considers the night a big mistake that should never have happened.
On her way to her dorm room and that whole day we get to see the kind of person she really is.

When she gets to her room, her roommate makes her a cupcake and instead of receiving it with gladness she collects it and tosses it into the trash. We also get to know she is having an affair with a married lecturer for good grades. This day in question we are witnessing is her birthday.

Her fellow sorority girls organized a party for her. On her way to the party, she is lured to a tunnel and gets murdered only to wake up in Charlie’s dorm room.
She thinks the whole incident before was a dream or some sort, and goes through the day again doing kind of the same thing and gets murdered again.

Waking up this time in Charlie’s room made her understand something was up and she felt this was some kind of déjà vu. Her death again and subsequent ones made her realize she has to do something. She soon learns every death takes a toll on her health.

The movie birthed a sequel as this movie was a huge financial breakthrough. The sequel Happy Death Day 2U also follows the life of Tree.
This movie is average and you will enjoy it if time loop is your thing and you can bear seeing a girl waste time half way through a movie, before the movie gets good.