Dave (1993)

Dave (1993)

7/10

Starring

Kevin Kline

Sigourney Weaver

Frank Langella

Kevin Dunn

Ving Rhames

Ben Kingsley

Directed by Ivan Reitman

Here is a movie I have seen numerous times and each time I get to see it again, I always do so with this excitement. To think someone thought getting a random person to impersonating the president was going to workout well, blows my mind.

Dave is a fantastic movie written with the idea of what will the White House be like if the president was a puppet controlled by his chief-of-staff. For me Dave as a film not only works as a political drama, but the comedy mixed with the romance also makes it easy to swallow as a romantic comedy.

Staged with backstabbing on all angles, the thill of how each character was going to manage the circumstances presented before them makes the film as thrilling as it is funny. The movie boast of fantastic acting from its leads in Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver and Frank Langella. The movie is directed by Ivan Reitman who called in Weaver to play the female lead, as both worked together in Ghostbusters.

The script for me did a good job in balancing a serious matter with a comedic tone. If you have not seen the movie before you are left to enjoy how Kline’s character had to overcome all challenges to keep the ball rolling.

The movie starts with an introduction to Dave (Kevin Kline) who runs a temporary employment agency and has a second job impersonating the president of the United States, Bill (Kevin Kline). One day Bill had to attend to an urgent matter (banging a White House staffer) and asked for a stand-in. Dave was hired to be the stand in. During the sex with the staffer the president suffered a stroke putting him in a coma. His chief-of-staff, Bob (Frank Langella) and communications director Alan, came up with an idea. So that they can continue to get things done their way, they sent the vice-president on a tour (claiming the task is from the president). Moved the president to a ward in the white house and bribed everyone who knows about it to keep their mouth shut.

 

They then hired Dave to play stand-in, while they use him to pass their policies, with the hope of ruining the vice-president and get Bob to be the VP.

Things did not go well, because the First Lady (who hates her husband and wants nothing to do with him and just sticks to the marriage until his presidency is over) suspects something is up. Dave also is not the best person to be a political puppet, because soon he started to have ideas of his own.

The movie is something you can see anytime and enjoy. It is funny and well crafted.

In fact it is said Bill Clinton (President at the time) liked the movie and autographed the script for the scriptwriter.

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Galaxy Quest (1999)

 

7/10

Starring

Tim Allen

Sigourney Weaver

Alan Rickman

Tony Shalhoub

Directed by Dean Parisot

If you have gone through the 90s without seeing Galaxy Quest, then as a movie lover you have a hole in your library. I will advise you go fill it now by seeing this all-time sci-fi cult classic. It is a well-crafted sci-fi comedy which comes to you as a parody sci-fi films and series. The movie takes most of its ideas from Star Trek.

What I respect and appreciate about this movie is that it does not fall into the same realm of most of the parodies we see, where they exaggerate the comedy. Most parody come to you in the form of Scary Movie or Airplane! This does not have such slap-stick comedy, but a serious script written to depict a serious matter of life and death, all with enough comedy to keep you smiling.

The movie is about the cast of an 80s tv-series called Galaxy Quest. The tv-show now has been discontinued by it has a huge fan base who hold conventions and carry with them huge fan theories. Now the cast of this show, do not all get along. Over the years they have matured and have struggled to get other jobs, and get by on the money they make from these conventions.

Galaxy Quest’s crew, composes of Commander Taggart played by Jason (Tim Allen). Gwen (Sigourney Weaver) plays Lt Tawny, Dr. Lazarus is played by Alexander (the late Alan Rickman). These three and other three members are the crew of this ship commanded by Taggart.

We also get to know that Jason is an egomaniac who over the years has grown to be resented by his cast mate for his selfishness and behavior. During one of such conventions Jason was approached by some weird people, who also dress like the crew. They ask him for help and seek for him to come with them. He brushes them off and moves on with his life. He is awoken the next day by this same people who are at his home, telling him they have a limo. He is further informed that he is to help them negotiate with a bad guy set to destroy them.

He goes along, thinking that this was a paid gig, he gets into the limo and sleeps off, while the limo takes off into space. He awakens to see himself in a ship still thinking that this was a well-crafted gig. He is told by these aliens that they have crafted their whole civilization in accordance to the tv-show, which they presume is historical information from Jason’s planet.

He plays his part according to what he believes is his part in the negotiation with another alien race led by their ruler Sarris. He inevitably makes things worse for the aliens who came to pick him up. When he wanted to leave, he was beamed down, and the process freaks him out. As he realizes that he was just coming from an alien ship, and now on earth he was informed that he has made things worse with Sarris and must return to fix it. He runs to his other crew members who were at a convention and ask them to come with him, telling them everything. They brush him off, then thinking there was money involved went along with him. They get to a spot and they too are beamed up to the ship.

The shock soon wore off and they wanted nothing to do with the lives of the people who depends on them. These alien race look to them as gods as they cannot comprehend the fact that they have been watching a make-believe not reality.

Now Sarris wants something on the ship called Omega 13 and Jason plus his crew are no tasked with handling the negotiations.

How things were messed up and later put together is what you will love about this movie and I beg that you go see it, if you have not.

Over the Moon (2020)

Over the Moon (2020)

4/10

Starring the voices of:

Cathy Ang

Phillipa Soo

Ken Jeong

John Cho

Directed by Glen Keane and John Kahrs

This is one of the must forgettable animation I have seen in a while. I think this movie would have been best served as a short. Everything seemed dragged by unneeded songs and worse still none of the music were catchy, fun or cool to listen too. That said the animation is watchable, but not classy enough to be rated high like the ones you would expect from Disney and the likes.

The plot is missing many things, especially depths in the eureka moments and everything that added up to make up the script was not it at all. You can let go of the fact that this is a fantasy animation where a young girl built a rocket by using mostly household tools, household items and things she could order from like Amazon. You can also let go of the delay tactics to which the animation explored by packing in songs not well written for children (or adult alike) to catch on, but you cannot let go of the way everything played out so cliché and silly.

Over the Moon is a computer animated fantasy, adventure comedy-drama produced by Netflix. The movie’s script is based on the Chinese goddess Change’e. It takes one of the myths told about her and builds on it.

The story starts with a young family of father, mother and daughter. The young girl Fei Fei has deep love for her mother and loves her stories about the goddess Chang’e. One of the stories she loves best is the one of Chang’es undying love for a man she lost. According to the stories she has not given up hope in finding her one true love again.

Well, Fei Fei’s world got a big shock when she lost her mother and after time has passed her father is now moving on. He has developed a relationship with a beautiful and nice lady who has one of the cutest and nicest son named Chin. Fei Fei on the other hand does not want her father to marry this woman, she believes he should not feel alone as long as she (Fei Fei) is around.

So in order to prove to her father that his love for her mother should never die, Fei Fei decided to fly to the moon to meet the goddess and get a picture of her to prove to her father that she is still alive holding on to the love she has lost.

The flight to the moon is where the movie really kicks off, as she makes the rocket and takes off to the moon with Chin who sneaked into the rocket without her knowing. They made it to the moon thanks to some help and we get to see her on her quest.

In the end, here is an animation you can leave your children to watch while you do something better with your time.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

7/10

Starring

Sacha Baron Cohen

Eddie Redmayne

Daniel Flaherty

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Michael Keaton

Frank Langella

John Carroll Lynch

Mark Rylance

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a movie well structured not just to be a documentary or real life event tale, it dares to be more, touching all aspects. The Chicago 7 trial happened in 1968 when some groups went against the Vietnam war. The movie resonates on many terms touching all the different aspects at play from trial manipulation, biased system, politics, crocked judge and jury tampering. It does all this while keeping an eye on the main chaos at hand. The movie is well written not to bore, but to entertain and educate also on the length the government will go to indict seven people for causing riots.

What I liked is the flow of the movie. Aaron Sorkin the director and writer takes us forward with the trial and back with scenes that led up to the events of the trial. as we see how the men’s behavior can be misconstrued by a well orchestrated team to be inciting riots.

The courtroom drama has everything you will expect, shocking revelations and shocking behavior from the trial judge.

The plot shows us eight people arrested and trialed by the government for inciting riots. The eight person was Bobby Seale. Seale’s case was dropped and termed a mistrial by the prosecutors mainly because he was without counsel and the judge’s behavior towards him was hostile. The remaining seven had to go on with the trial and that is when the masterful acting from Mark Rylance. Mark plays the lead lawyer of the seven William Kunstler.

The trial is filled with all the necessary twist and turns for the needed excitement with unruly behaviors and a biased judge. The judge is played by wonderfully Frank Langella who was ready to do what it takes to make sure everyone from the defendant side including their lawyers get a prison sentence.

The case of the seven seems to be an easy win for the prosecutors because with the judge in their corner, the was nothing anyone could do to make things go in their favor.

When it comes to performances from others on play, we have the ones of Eddie Redmayne and Sacha Baron Cohen to admire.

This was meant to have a theatrical release, but the covid-19 pandemic led to it having its distribution right bought by Netflix. It is a wonderful film to see, which has a fun production history as the film was written for production way back in 2007 and the Writers Guild of America strike led to suspension of the production. So the movie floated in limbo for over a decade before getting back on the production cycle.

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)

7/10

Starring

Dev Patel

Aneurin Barnard

Peter Capaldi

Morfydd Clark

Daisy May Cooper

Rosalind Eleazar

Hugh Laurie

Tilda Swinton

Directed by Armando Lannucci

Dev Patel plays the lead role (David Copperfield) in one of the best books ever written, by one of the best authors there ever was Charles Dickens. The book is considered Dickens best work and the screenplay to which this movie is crafted is done with some slight changes here and there to reduce the gloom and some tweaks in other places to add comedy.

I have to be honest this movie does good enough justice to the book, and the whole spin just makes the experience even more lovely. Patel was way ahead of himself in his role as David Copperfield, his acting was awesome. Then add to that the perfect cast of fantastic actors around him and you are gifted a wonderful viewing time as we watch the life of David Copperfield unfold.

Believing we all already know the story of David Copperfield, here is a summary of what the movie is about.

Set in mid 19^th century, which is the time the book was written. We are introduced to the beautiful Clara Copperfield who gave birth to a young man named David. David’s birth was not at all a welcome news to everyone, especially his great aunt Trotwood (Tilda Swinton) from his father’s side, who was hopping for a girl. She wanted to be a godmother to the girl and train her to despise men as she has. David is cared for and raised by the wonderful Peggotty (Daisy May Cooper) the Copperfield housekeeper. When his father died his mother remarried a cruel man, who mistreated Clara and abused David.

When Clara died, David was forced to work in his stepfather’s factory, after a while he ran away to find his great aunt Trotwood. Recall Trotwood at first did not want to have anything to do with him, but as in the book her character is complicated. She took him in as her ward immediately and sent him to school to be educated as a gentleman.

The adventures of David from this point led him to meet the woman he will marry in Dora and the next antagonist in the second half of the movie (and book) Uriah Heep. His adventures then take him back to the Peggotty’s house hold.

The movie is a critical success and I believe would have been a commercial success, if not that its release was planned but marred by the covid-19 pandemic.

Nonetheless, it is a movie to go look for and see, even if you have not read the book itself this movie will give you a nice insight into what the book is about. I think it will cause you to have interest in reading the book to know how some characters really played out.

Bad Education (2019)

Bad Education (2019)

7/10

Starring

Hugh Jackman

Allison Janney

Geraldine Viswanathan

Alex Wolff

Directed by Cory Finley

Bad Education is a crime drama about school embezzlement, based on a true life event of how the superintendent and his assistant stole over $11 million in tax dollars.

This movie catches me unawares, when I saw that it was a true story I was really captivated to see how everything was really going to go down. The movie is well scripted not to leave room for the viewer to get bored. Things are happening at a steady pace, exciting and easy to follow. Very soon before your eyes the character which seems to be the moral fiber, decays before you to reveal a dark, insensitive and cruel person you should be scared of.

The director Cory Finley does his best to hold the movie before you and not let slip the main evil in the end. When the reveal of how deep the corruption is, you are left surprised at the value of money stolen.

Based on a real life event, I just wonder what would have happened or how long this embezzlement would have continued if the school paper had not investigated.

We meet Dr. Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) a superintendent of the Roslyn Union Free School District on Long Island. Frank is charismatic, friendly and his co-workers, the school board, parents and students love him. The assistant superintendent Pam Gluckin (Allison Janney) oversees the projects that the school district is involved in, the main on now is a skywalk.

The skywalk project is part of the many projects that the school board with the guidance of Frank and Pam have been doing with the aim of making Roslyn school number one in the country. Frank believes in appearances, which is very obvious in the way he dresses and carries himself. So projects that brings attention to the school and make it look classy are things that truly excite him.

The local school paper is doing a write-up on the new skywalk a write-up led by a student named Rachel. As she is doing her digging, an unrelated event led to Pam’s life getting exposed as a lax in judgment caused her to allows her family use a school expense card at their own will. This led to her son making such a huge purchase for home improvement without thinking, which caught the attention of the school board. This began a domino effect to which you will have to see the movie to know how it will play out.

This is a fine movie to see, and I encourage you to.

The Witches (2020)

The Witches (2020)

3/10

Starring

Anne Hathaway

Octavia Spencer

Stanley Tucci

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

The first movie had an ending that was not perfect in any sense, but it was a happy one that is. Here they decided to switch it up a little and give us a not so perfect ending, but then make it up to feel like all things worked out well for good. I am like, if you cannot make it better do not even try to change it then.

This is a crappy movie, boring and just lacking in any form of excitement.

Streaming on HBO Max is this remake of the 1990 film of the same name, The Witches. The 1990 film has a cult following with high praises laid before Anjelica Huston for her role as Grand High Witch. Well, Anne Hathaway has been asked to step into those shoes. The movie caught my eye because of Hathaway (great actor) and the director is the amazing Robert Zemeckis, plus co-writer with Zemeckis is Guilliermo del Toro. Come on why will I not want to see this? Oh, did I fail to mention the movie is also narrated by Chris Rock. Sadly, the movie was a dud.

The movie starts a little different from the first movie. In Alabama we are introduced to the young man Charlie, who is an orphan and living with his grandmother. After an incident in the shopping center, his grandmother tells him about witches and how they hate children. She tells him that they need to go away for a while because of his incident at the shopping center.

They go to a hotel, which it so happens is where the Grand High Witch was holding a conference telling the other witches about her plan to turn all the children to mice.

Charlie get caught by the Grand High Witch while he was hiding and listening to their plan and he was turned to a mice. Now he must locate his grandmother and stop the witches from fulfilling their plan.

So they changed the story a lot, taking it from a British setting in the 1990 version to an all black cast setting in Alabama. The boy actor was not particularly good which just made things worse off in comparison to the movie it is trying to remake.

My major challenge with this film was the whole changes. The changes were suppose to give this movie life, by adding more depth, characters and ideas, but in the end what they added were more reasons to be bored.

Then Hathaway did not live up to the performance laid down by Anjelica Huston. Her character had an accent and meandered way too much in her conversations.

I saw the whole change to the witches appearances were more of special effects show off than the needed childish fun that came with the first movie.

The Witches (1990)

The Witches (1990)

6/10

Starring

Anjelica Huston

Mai Zetterling

Jasen Fisher

Rowan Atkinson

Directed by Nicolas Roeg

Before I decided to see the Anne Hathaway’s The Witches (2020 remake), I gave in to the urge of seeing the first adaptation done in 1990 by Jim Henson Productions. The Witches is a dark fantasy children’s book written by British author Roald Dahl in 1983.

Funny enough the moment I started watching and got to the cruel plan of how the witches want to transform all children, my childhood caught up with me and I knew I have seen the movie numerous times as a child. I was five when this movie came out, so I never knew the name, just recollection of what happened.

I have not read the book that this movie is based, but I can safely say this is not a bad movie to see. I was able to sit through it again and what surprise to find that Rowan Atkinson had a role in the movie.

The movie had a grand performance by Anjelica Huston (as the Grand High Witch) and this movie has a firm cult following, as a child I recall a friend of mine seeing the movie over and over again.

The movie starts with the introduction of Helga a grandmother who we see sitting and telling her grandson about witches. We come to understand that these witches are not just women with magic, but demons who hate children. Helga's eight-year-old grandson, Luke is warned about these creatures and she went as far as to give him information on how to recognize them.

They are female with claws instead of fingernails which they hide by wearing gloves. They are also bald which they hide by wearing wigs. She also tells him that they have no toes which they hide by wearing shoes which are not pointed. The most distinctive feature is their eyes, they have a trace of purple in their pupils. These witches hate the smell of children and will do anything they can to get rid of them.

We get to see first hand what the witches are like earlier on in the film when one tried to capture Luke and using his grandma’s warnings he was able to deduce. When his grandma fell ill, they were told to go for a holiday, somewhere by the seaside. They did and it so happens that all the witches in England were also vacating at that same hotel. Worse of all the ruler of all the witches far and wide Grand High Witch was visiting England to meet with all the witches in England to device a master plan.

Luke happened to be caught by the witches and they used him along with another boy in the hotel as test subjects for their new plan.

Luke escapes and finds his grandmother, tells her what the Grand High Witch wants to do to all the children of England and they bond together to stop her.

The new 2020 remake is directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Guillermo del Toro. I will be seeing this hope it is as good as this.

Her Smell (2018)

Her Smell (2018)

6/10

Starring

Elizabeth Moss

Cara Delevingne

Dan Stevens

Directed by Alex Ross Perry

Her Smell is a dramatic look at the life of a rock star from the rise to fame to the bottom where everything is against you. The movie has bad pacing, which is very apparent in the first hour. Add to that the weird cinematography and the screenplay which had more than half of the movie happening backstage of a concert. The movie does not have multiple scenes, just elongated ones and you can actually count the scenes in this movie. The movie tries to pass more information about the characters using home video footage. During all this, there seem to be a shallow understanding of the characters themselves, including Becky.

There are times you wish other things were happening other than the long conversations that were getting nowhere. The movie’s turning point which included the breakdown of Becky the rockstar would have been more dramatic if the cinematography was better and the fight more convincing.

That said, the performance delivered by Elizabeth Moss in this film as Becky is just amazing. Worth commending her and receiving an award for.

Like said above the movie is about the downfall of a rockstar, Becky rose to fame and at that moment became her own worse enemy. She had a fight with everyone around her and surrounded herself with sounding boards who just wanted to extort her.

When she hit the bottom of the barrel, she still was trying to hold things together believing much in herself as the drugs and alcohol were driving her. She soon lost even her closest friends (her band mates) who wanted nothing else to do with her bullshit.

It was then she hit rock bottom and lost everything. It then became the one things she at one point despise (her daughter) became the only thing she had that mattered.

I don’t know much of how this movie fared in the box-office, but from the way the movie is put together and the lack of buzz in my small circle I wonder if it made much of a profit.

The movie is directed and written by Alex Ross Perry who also served as producer along with Moss. Perry and Moss had worked together before on Queen of Earth. Perry also directed the live-action of Winnie the Pooh in 2018, Christopher Robin.

The movie also has Cara Delevingne who did nothing much in this movie and Dan Stevens who is the father to Becky’s daughter.

The only way I can ask you to see this movie is just to see the fantastic acting by Moss, you may love the movie also, but it is not a movie for everyone.

Unhinged (2020)

Unhinged (2020)

6/10

Starring

Russell Crowe

Caren Pistorius

Gabriel Bateman

Directed by Derrick Borte

Unhinged is one movie that will have your attention from the start it is not the best thrilling insane psycho movie out there, but it had me glued. My main criticism is the way the movie fell down the same rabbit hole such movies seem to want to follow. The movie was one directional and the psycho was too focused on ruin the life of a complete stranger. The movie leaves us with a lot of guessing on many questions left hanging, but it does not matter to the main plot.

Another cliché thing was when the victim Rachel (Caren Pistorius) gets this strength to want to fight her attacker and talk back, something I do not think is reasonable although it is very possible. I have seen a white man go to a crowded place where there are black guys and use the n-word and gets himself knocked out. So, people having courage to spit out trash when there should not is possible.

As far as acting goes and characterization, the character Man (Russell Crowe) was played very well, what else would you expect from an Academy Award wining actor. The character did not have much dimensions about him, so it was nice to see how Crowe gave it life. Now Rachel and everyone else except her son, seem to be on a lower level.

The movie starts with the man character siting in a car outside a house. After he had psyched himself up, he goes at the door with a hammer, when the occupants came at him he kills them and burns down the house.

We soon discover the residence were his ex-wife and her new partner. Rachel’s day did not start rosy. She was late for an appointment and her ex-husband was coming after everything she got, plus she lost her job. On her way to taking her son to school, she impatiently drove pass the man character who was not paying attention to the traffic light. He later drove up to her and politely apologized and asked her to apologise back for the way she behaved. She did not apologise and spoke to the man rudely stating she is having a bad day – the man character decided and told her, that he will show her what a real bad day is.

He tailed her, and before we know it, he starts to kill those close to her after getting info from her phone which he stole. And even though she has called the cops, it was obvious this man was not going to stop until he kills everyone close to her.

The movie hits the spot for excitement, nothing more. It is not a potential award winner and there are many places you can pull strings from it. Nonetheless, it is still a good movie to see.

The Lie (2018)

The Lie (2018)

4/10

Starring

Mireille Enos

Peter Sarsgaard

Joey King

Directed by Veena Sud

The Lie is a movie that is filled with so much mistakes by the parents trying to cover up their child’s suspected murder and by the writer plus director.

I have not seen the movie this is trying to remake, but I hope it is better shaped. The movie takes this whole thrilling suspense thing to a level that became very tiring. I felt at one point the movie was going on for a bit too long, and there is no way a couple can bond over the idea of their daughter committing murder the way they did in this movie.

The direction to which the movie was going is set from the start as the suspected murder happens right from the start. Now it is from here that the movie I give it recognizance has me hooked and my curiosity on alert. But when you get to the end of the movie and you see the twist it does not make up for all that have happened. The twist made me dislike the movie as a whole because it made everything that had happened seem so worthless, stupid and questionable.

Why would you killing someone (Kayla’s friend Brittany) and your parents lying to the police and you helping to point the finger at the Brittany’s father was going to play out well in the end? Do note, Kayla claimed that the murder was because boys liked Brittany more than her and her father was looking at her, which in the end did not matter to anything.

Here is how it happened, Kayla is the daughter of a musician and a lawyer. The fifteen year-old Kayla’s parent (Rebecca and Jay) are divorced. We do not get a full dose of why, but we can see that they do not get along. Well Kayla was on her way to a camp with her dad driving, and on their way they stopped and picked Brittany. There was a stop when the girls ran into the woods by a river and a loud scream led to Jay running to see what had happened. Kayla told Jay she had pushed her friend into the freezing river. Jay runs in to try and find her, but to no avail. They get into the car and hide, then drives off with the idea that her daughter has committed murder.

They go to Rebecca and she finds out what had happened, soon the parent with Rebecca start planing how they can get away with it. The police show up and this is where the ending of the movie and this point do not add up, Kayla played along with her parents to blame the father for Brittany’s disappearance.

The police are sure there is something wrong with these stories as evidence shows that the family is lying, the closer the police get the more desperate the couple become. Soon they do something so beyond normal that when the final twist comes, you wonder why this movie was so badly written.

 

Mega-Spoiler Alert

It turns out that Kayla and her friend faked her death so Brittany can runaway and be with her boyfriend.

I ask myself - Why go through all this, just to run away with your boyfriend? Why not just runaway and come back when you are done.

This is why I believe this movie was badly written.

Love and Monsters (2020)

Love and Monsters (2020)

7/10

Starring

Dylan O'Brien

Michael Rooker

Ariana Greenblatt

Jessica Henwick

Directed by Michael Matthews

Set in a post-apocalyptic earth Love and Monsters is a movie that makes all the necessary stops thanks to some talented story and screenwriting. The director did a wonderful job of keeping the movie on track with some willful characterization which I have to commend Dylan O’Brien for his acting skills. O’Brien gave us a character which was focused, determined and silly enough to think love is all he needs to make an unbelievable journey.

The director held the movie together with some nice narration from O’Brien’s character Joel and the introduction of cool characters, which included a dog.

Imagine a future where there is a large meteor heading towards earth and we fired all the nuclear powered stuff we had at it. We finally get the meteor, but the whole nuclear thrown into the atmosphere messed up our entire planet. The radioactive waste from the weapons led to mutation of almost all the creatures on the planets and they came after us. These creatures killed over ninety-five percent of the world population (of humans) and the ones left hide in bunkers.

We meet Joel who lives in a bunker with a lot of people who have all coupled up, and the movie starts with that which can be very confusing. At first I felt with this introduction of sex in the very beginning this movie will be very sexually focused. It turns out that beginning was the only sexual tone there was, so do not get flustered by it.

In Joel’s bunker he is the cook because Joel has a thing that when he gets scared, he freezes. He also keeps a diary and writes letters to his former girlfriend from seven years ago before the world turned to what we see now. It so happens that she is in another bunker and he has been able to make contact with her, and kept in touch for like a year now.

He then decided out of the blue when their bunker was breached that he is going to go to meet her at her bunker. His colleagues were shocked that he wanted to make such a journey because it was obvious that Joel will not survive a day in the outside world and now he wants to make a seven day journey to go find his old lover.

The whole adventure led him to find a dog, who then went with him on his ridiculous adventure which almost got them killed and were saved by a man and a little girl. The duo were going towards a cold mountainous and Joel went along with them on their way, while learning how to survive. At this point the movie makes a nice dash in the third-act from a comedic thrilling adventure to an action adventure. It ended in a way that made room for future additions to the story.

I enjoyed seeing the movie and I think you will too.

Fighting with My Family (2019)

Fighting with My Family (2019)

 

7/10

Starring

Florence Pugh

Lena Headey

Nick Frost

Jack Lowden

Vince Vaughn

Dwayne Johnson

 

Directed by Stephen Merchant

 

The movie just pushes past the norm to deliver its own message. You can see all the cliché playing out, but the movie does not allow that to stop it, which is thanks to its pacing and script.

This is one hell of a fantastic time in front of the screen. I wonder why I never heard of this film last year. The movie does all the necessary things needed to make you love what it was trying to do and to carry you through the life of WWE superstar Saraya “Paige” Knight. This movie is a biographical sports comedy-drama which in turn is based on a documentary on the life of Paige. It shows us how Paige was able to go from wrestling in England to the WWE. The acting along by Florence Pugh as Paige is enough for me to ask you to go see this film. But it is not her performance alone that does this movie justice, its well written screenplay by Stephen Merchant who also directed were the needed touch.

The movie introduces us to the Knight family, a family of wrestlers who go about England doing shows. The father has been sending tapes of his children to the WWE with the hope of getting them signed. One unexpected day, the children were asked to come audition.

Saraya was picked and her brother Zak was dropped. This was devastating to Zak whose dream has been to be in the WWE, in fact we learn that Saraya is as good as she is now because of Zak who also trains young children.

Saraya picked her stage name, Paige and went to the training school. The movie then takes us through all the drama that is in the training school and the difficulty that there is in becoming a WWE superstar. We get to see Paige grow to be a better person watching this movie and be sure we do get to see some fight glimpse.

I will like to say this movie paints the WWE in the good light. But reality is far from it. I will direct you to go do your own studying and probably watch John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight take on the WWE to get an idea on what it is all about.

That said, here is a movie I am sure you will enjoy when you see it. The emotional rollercoaster with the comedy makes this one movie you will not mind seeing the second time just to get the feel again.

In case you need another reason to see it, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson features in a small role in it, in more than one scene.

Fast Color (2019)

Fast Color (2019)

 

5/10

Starring

Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Lorraine Toussaint

Saniyya Sidney

 

Directed by Julia Hart

 

For a good film which this is, it is not well paced. The suspense is timid and the lack of physical conflict (expect the one where our lead, shoots the scientist in the hand), makes this movie a little too light. The bad pacing makes some moments in this movie a snooze fest.

So, what else do I find good about this movie? I guess that will be the acting and the idea. Gugu Mbatha-Raw was fantastic in this movie, I have to recognize that. Then the movie idea is very different and just explores the natural life of a lady struggling with her superpowers.

The writing in this movie wasted screen time on elongated scenes leading nowhere and it was side tracked by female empowerment themes. Here is a movie that tries to pass a message on female empowerment and their challenges, doing so by using much of the screen time with lines that can solve insomnia. I could have gotten the whole message of the female struggle in less time than the one the movie used.

The movie plot explores the life Ruth (Mbatha-Raw). Ruth is on the run and is being chased by an agency wanting to study her. In her plight she runs back to the place she was from – she runs back home. It was there we discover there is more to Ruth and that her powers are genetically linked. We meet Ruth’s daughter whom she left behind with her mother Bo, when she was finding it hard to control her powers. Hoping to get help from her mother in learning to control her powers Ruth conceal from her mother her whereabouts and how she got back home.

We see her try to mend things with her daughter and trying to get back her powers under control. All this while the agency is tracking her.

Maybe it is my male testosterone talking, but I was expecting a showdown in the end, with the ladies getting the upper hand and leaving everyone else behind. Instead the showdown looked like it was going to take place, but then it did not.

The movie would have done better if it was thirty minutes shorter and maybe with some one or two fights. The movie is directed and co-written by Julia Hart.

If you want to see a superhero film without all the extensive special effects and high intensity musical score, then Fast Color is the gig for you. I will advise though, do not watch this movie at night there is a chance when it gets to the dull moments you will sleep off.