Insomnia (2002)

Insomnia (2002)

7/10

Starring

Al Pacino

Robin Williams

Hilary Swank

Maura Tierney

Directed by Christopher Nolan

This was the first Christopher Nolan movie I saw back then in the early 2000s. I recall what drew me to see it is that it starred Robin Williams in a none comedic role, and at that time I had begun to love Al Pacino. Insomnia is a remake of a 1997 Norwegian film of the same name, and this psychological detective thriller swallows you up in what is a battle for integrity.

The power of this movie is the cinematography, shot in Alaska the movie makes the best of the scenery. Nolan the director makes you feel the challenge as an officer develops insomnia as he struggles with his conscience which is made worse because that time of the year in Alaska at that time. We got to know and me for the first time when seeing this movie back then that they in Alaska experience 24 hours daylight for like two months in a year. As expected Pacino and Williams gave outstanding performances making this movie easy to follow and very enjoyable a ride.

The plot is about the murder of a seventeen-year-old girl. A detective from LA named Will (Al Pacino) was sent to assist in the investigation. Will is very popular for solving notable cases, but he being sent to Alaska was not because of that. Will is under investigation concerning his last case, he is being suspected for planting evidence and he has been sent off far from LA because of the ongoing investigation.

Will none the less takes on the case and immediately starts putting things together. He is not alone, as his longtime partner Hap, is in Alaska with him and both set a trap for the murderer. All this was done after Will and Hap discuss the ongoing case which put Will on the edge. The trap for the murderer was perfect and he fell for it, but upon approach tragedy struck and Will is right in the middle of it. With the investigation in LA ongoing, now this problem was going to give the Internal Affairs people more ammo to take him down.

Worse still he still has to solve the case of the murdered girl and as explained above his guilt from planting evidence is hunting him, causing him to have insomnia.

The movie did ok at the box office, and garnered a lot of positive reviews from critics. It is still very much interesting to see and I will advise if you have not seen this movie before, you should find it and cross seeing it off your list.

Interstellar (2014)

 Interstellar (2014)

7/10

Starring

Matthew McConaughey

Anne Hathaway

Jessica Chastain

Bill Irwin

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Interstellar is a thought-provoking, emotional space opera with visual mastery and excellent effects. The movie circles around a bunch of casts and even though the plot can be a little brainy and at most times farfetched, you still get lost in the drama. The challenge of science to be this good in the future is a possibility that can only be debunked in like forty years.

The effect of time and the relativity of it adds to the excitement as at first you witness it at a distance, then a little error in judgment by one of the characters and you see it close up. The only downer here is that the movie does not have the best lines and there were scenes you can feel that the movie is dragging a little too much.

Written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, with the later directing Interstellar does not bother to play safe with its ideas. It takes place in 2067, where we see that the present world suffers from food shortage, which is as a result of a dying earth. The only kind of food which grows is maize/corn and almost everyone is now a farmer as jobs like engineer or those with scientific background have grown to be extinct.

We meet Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) a widowed NASA pilot who lives on his farm with his two children, a son Tom and brainy daughter Murph. One thing that catches you is Murph’s complaint of ghosts in her room. We later get to see that the disturbance done in Murph’s room were a message telling Cooper where to go. He drives to the co-ordinate and gets arrested and was separated from Murph. He wakes up in a government facility being questioned by a military robot. The drilling was interrupted by Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), a name Cooper knows which we soon discover is her father Dr. Brand (Michael Caine) Cooper’s former boss. Cooper was surprised to know that NASA was still functioning because during this time all resources were diverted from anything space exploration. Dr. Brand tells Cooper that there is life out there, and they know the location. They have sent twelve people to the twelve planets they suspect could house life. These planets are located near a black hole called Gargantua and he believes that unknown beings have positioned the wormhole near the planet.

Cooper was asked to pilot the ship that will go to the three planets suspected to have positive data based on the reports sent back by three of the twelve. They are to go investigate and pick the one which everyone could be able to live. Cooper decided to go even though his daughter was so much against it. The movie is about their emotional journey, the backstabbing, the lies and challenges they faced. Add to that the effects of time on their journey and the effect of time on the people they left behind.

Greenland (2020)

Greenland (2020)

7/10

Starring

Gerard Butler

Morena Baccarin

Roger Dale Floyd

Scott Glenn

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

Greenland may not racking in awards, but the movie is captivating and it is a fantastic movie. The movie packs enough captivating events that you can spread them over two films. From kidnapping, attempted murder, theft, action and tragedy all happening while a catastrophic end of the world incident is playing out. You can weave some of these events together and have them run solo to make a movie on its own.

You can have one movie being about a family trying to survive the now cruel world as everything as we know it comes to an end. Or a family trying to make it to a safe haven to survive a catastrophic incident which could spell the end of the world. The director masterfully made the movie from the best of everything. Taking the best part of all the possible things that could happen, he shaped this movie over the almost two hour run-time without you even knowing how long you have spent sat there watching. He even added compassion from an unexpected source just to make this movie have the cinematic appeal and emotional dose needed during these trying covid times.

The movie starts with the introduction of the Garrity family. We meet John (Gerard Butler) who we come to understand is trying to make things work with his wife as they seem to be having marital problems. There is Allison the wife and their son Nathan who is diabetic. John gets an alert on his phone telling him he and his family has been selected for emergency sheltering. This happens when he and his family were planing for the party they were going to host for their neighbors to watch the passing comet.

The passing comet ended up not just being a passing comet, but a world changing one as debris from it fall to earth. These debris and many others to come we get to understand would be tragic for the world as a whole. The message to John comes to his phone again and on his TV alerting his neighbors that there is something up and he and his family have been selected for some sort of evacuation.

From then on the movie takes a new turn. On getting to the base where they were supposed to be taken for sheltering, things start to get difficult when they misplaced Nathan’s insulin. John leaves his family to go get it, and things get worse.

Allison and Nathan gets kicked out of the shelter and John gets swept away in the storming of the base. Allison leaves a message on their car for John. When John gets to the car, he sees the message and knows where they will be. The journey to get there for both husband and wife, is filled with so much turmoil. Which is the whole thing this movie is about, worth seeing.

Tenet (2020)

Tenet (2020)

7/10

Starring

John David Washington

Robert Pattinson

Elizabeth Debicki

Dimple Kapadia

Directed by Christoper Nolan

Christoper Nolan has a knack of creating movies that are puzzles set in place for film lovers to put together and spend more time after viewing to try to find the missing links. Tenet is like a drug for people who love movie thrills with puzzles. Notwithstanding the movie takes you attention for the long run-time and it is enjoyable and thrilling. It is an action-thriller with a hell lot of time travel sci-fi just sprinkled all over it. You get a taste of Memento (2000) and Inception (2010) (movies Nolan also directed and wrote), Nolan did not hold anything back in this production, which he also directed and wrote. The movies production cost is very high, although I must add the sound mixing was not so good.

Right from the get go when I saw someone like unshoot a bullet, I got this feeling like this would have been best a TV-Series. You get the idea that as a series it would have had more time to give me more juice on the plot.

Our man is a CIA who witnessed the unshooting bullets. He was captured and he killed himself, but survived. Our man now tagged dead, gets enrolled in the secret organization called Tenet. There he is shown bullets with what is called inverted entropy which allows them to move backwards through time.

He is given a task to find who is supplying this bullets. He soon learns that the bullets are normal bullets which are turned to inverted entropy by a machine. Things get further complex and we get into a time travel mix, and we have to be on our toes to keep up with things.

Even though the movie has a run-time of almost two hours thirty minutes, you still find yourself choked on a complex plot with way too many intricate details and characters. If this was a series it would have been best because Nolan would have had more time to build his world and gently flesh out things happening on screen.

The movie production cost was high in the figures of $200 million and with marketing cost, the movie has been tagged a box office bomb set to lose over $100 million. Which is sad because the movie is well done enough to be a hit. Acting wise John David Washington (Denzel Washington’s son) did an amazing job and I can feel he is on his way to be as good as his father. Everyone else from Robert Pattinson down to Michael Caine gave top performances. Michael Caine has a short time in this movie, but he has become a familiar face in Nolan films.

To be able to enjoy this at the cinema would have been difficult, because watching it at my control will require me to skip back numerous times. That said, it is a movie to throw on the rack of the wonderful Nolan movies he has done over the years.

Vanguard (2020)

Vanguard (2020)

5/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Ai Lun

Yang Yang

Miya Muqi

Directed by Stanley Tong

Fair warning before you go see this movie, the plot is flawed and there are many reasons why this movie has a bad ratings from critics. One of the most annoying thing about the movie are the lines. Think cheesy, then multiply that by ten, what you get is this movie here. Also do not expect to see Jackie Chan doing much fighting in this movie, he is mostly relegated to overseeing things and participating less. He left most of the fights to the new generation of actors.

I can say that the best thing would be do not go out of your way to see this movie, just wait for it to come meet you. For me what I saw was an attempt at doing like a Chinese Kingsman because the amount of gadgets on display in this movie is way out of no where. The CGI in this movie is very bad, there is nothing worse than seeing that they are trying to trick you. They used CGI for the lion scenes which were badly executed, then there is a scene where Jackie Chan was able to do some magic near a waterfall, the CGI there too was poor.

The movie starts fast, not leaving room to breath at all, all we know from the start is that there is a group of people called the Arctic Wolves hired by a man to capture a wealthy man called Qin. Now after their initial kidnap of Qin and his wife got twat by a security team which Qin hired to protect him, the men went after Qin’s daughter. The security team are called Vanguard and their leader is no other than Jackie Chan himself. The team suspected that the men would go after the daughter and went to save her, get ready here for some bad acting by the lady playing Qin’s daugher.

Well, they get her in the end with one of Jackie’s men, so now they have to do a trade, the father for the two, with Chan hell bent in saving everyone.

For a Jackie Chan movie the body count was way high and Chan used guns a lot in this movie to kill some of the bad guys.

There is one scene where Chan does an amazing stunt, in the first twenty-five minutes he jumps on a moving car bonnet to get into the passenger side. That makes you go wow, then the movie plot dulls you again.

The shooting is intense in this movie and the movie refuses to drop its pace from the fast action it starts with. Even when they were planing to go do the rescue they did not waste much time talking. I can say it was not a bad watch, I did laugh at some of the cheesy lines, but I cannot find it in my heart to recommend this film.

Superintelligence (2020)

Superintelligence (2020)

3/10

Starring

Melissa McCarthy

Bobby Cannavale

Brian Tyree Henry

James Corden

Directed by Ben Falcone

If you have not seen this movie Superintelligence, I envy you right now. I so much wish I was you saved from the ridicule done to movie production. I wish I had the privilege to not have spent time listening to elongated movie lines that gave a new meaning to boredom. These lines were meant to entertain, but instead just seemed like never ending monologues from cliché cemetery.

I know of the Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy energy, this married couple produce their own films with McCarthy being the lead in most of them. While some have been ok, this will be one of their worst.

The movie is supposed to be a rom-com with a dash of sci-fi, it is about a lady named Carol Peters (McCarthy) who is an average woman selected by an AI to be studied for three days.

The AI (voiced mostly by James Corden) is a rogue children learning app that grew and learned much about everything and everyone. How that is possible is for the writer to explain, however he is not here right now for me to drill him. So, Carol tells her friend at Microsoft who then tells the government and this AI superintelligence becomes priority number one for destruction.

On the other hand, Carol has become to it a pet, which he wants to study to understand more about humans. And his key interest now is love and he wants to help Carol get back together with her ex.

From what we get from Carol she holds a lot of blame for them splitting up and the AI is ready to pull all the strings possible to get them back together.

Why the three days in the first paragraph? Well, the AI has not decided yet if it wants to take humans out of the equation or help them when it comes to saving the earth.

There is a current need for new streaming platforms to generate content and because of that we have had to deal with lame ass movies being released like all the time. It seems nobody wants to spend the time to create classics anymore and I believe these platforms have way too much money to throw around. The only good thing that happened while watching this film is that when I saw one of the characters buying trash bags, I remembered to take out mine. Funny, but I had a better time taking our my trash than seeing this movie. In the end with all of the talent at play, the movie ended up wasting them all.

Fatman (2020)

Fatman (2020)

 

3/10

Starring

Mel Gibson

Walton Goggins

Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Directed by Eshom Nelms and Ian Nelms

What is the point of making Santa (Mel Gibson whose name in this movie is Chris) be in cohorts with the government to milk money from its citizen when even that thread is not pulled?

I felt this movie was a complete waste of my time. The movie seems to have been packed with so many potentials to which it could have taken. The comedy could have been swung at us from many levels, but instead the movie got caught up with what I would believe is the ability of its casts to entertain on a half-baked script. The comedy mostly misses the mark and the only thing the director succeeded in was in the movie’s pacing, he kept it boring from the start to the end.

The acting may have been on the notch by all the characters involved, but what a waste were all the cast on this.

The movie leaves what could have been powerful subplots untreated and instead dived into a young boy and a silly obsessed character who want to kill Santa because he did not give them the gifts they wanted.

When the movie was over, I start to see that even the making of the toys and his ability to travel around in one night would have been nice to see. Instead there is this man who is hunting Santa with a gun. Then because this is a black comedy Santa is not a nice guy and he defends himself by using a gun also.

The movie introduces us to two pairs of individuals. Chris (Santa) and his wife Ruth – and we have on the other side Billy and Jonathan. Billy is a young man who is used to always getting his way in life and we see the extent of his spoilt nature. Jonathan on the other hand is a hired killer, an adult who is obsessed with hunting Santa, Jonathan got a lump of coal as his Christmas gift.

Chris is having issues with the government based on the children of the world turning to shit, and he giving out more coals than gift. The government wants him to divert his ability into another business for them. While he and his wife were contemplating this, Chris does his Christmas run for that year and Billy gets a lump of coal. In anger he called his hired hand Jonathan and pays him to find and kill Santa.

It is sad that this movie cost so much to produce ($20 million) and in the end is just a load of crap with little potential to entertain. I cannot ask for anyone to see this nonsense it is a short film, but that is just the only good thing about it.

Boss Level (2020)

Boss Level (2020)

6/10

Starring

Frank Grillo

Mel Gibson

Naomi Watts

 

Directed by Joe Carnahan

 

Boss Level starts off like the name describes a video game, we see a character get up from bed and deal with an assassin with little to no effort. He gets up, gets dressed, makes coffee while still bobbing and weaving away from the assassin’s punches and knife slashes.

You already get the feel that he seems to know where the sent killer will be and do. Then he starts to give us a little bio of his present predicament. This character’s name is Roy (Frank Grillo) and he is stuck in a time loop. He further lets us know he is unable to get through a day without getting killed, the movie starts at his seventy-nineth attempt.

Boss Level is good for the fact that I was able to follow along and the movie packs a mystery. There are many things you are left to discover first on your own before Roy gets off his selfish ass and catches up. So, in that sense the movie can be predictable and at times the movie drags.

The movie’s pacing is alright for the first half, then it gets muddled up as the movie gets going. I did not find the cinematography tasteful at all, I felt it could be better and some of the lines were just…

After we witness his death on the seventy-nineth attempt we get more info into the life of Roy. He is not the best character there is, when we meet his ex-wife, we discover that she is involved in a revolutionary scientific breakthrough. She fears for her life and that of their son when the breakthrough is done and sends clues to Roy to find a way to save her. When Roy finds himself in the loop, he tries to find her only to discover that she had died, moments before. He also finds himself on the constant run from assassins from the moment he wakes up until the time he is killed and he goes through it again.

This will be the second Mel Gibson movie I have seen this week, and even though I did not like the first [Fatman (2020)], this I pretty much enjoyed. The movie takes the time loop thing on a different ride than I am used to. It reminds me of the time loop that is in Edge of Tomorrow (2014), where the lead only gets to redo the day when he dies. That should give you a guess that there were times when things don’t go Roy’s way, he just offs himself.

The ending when he had to take on the boss gives me the feel of the movie Equilibrium (2002).

You can catch this movie on Hulu, it is not the best time loop movie for sure, but it will pass as good entertainment.

The Blind Side (2009)

The Blind Side (2009)

 

7/10

Starring

Quinton Aaron

Sandra Bullock

Tim McGraw

Kathy Bates

Directed by John Lee Hancock

There are not much Sandra Bullock movies that she not only gave a fantastic performance, but the plot to which her character is based is just as good, this movie ticks both boxes. The Blind Side is a biographical sports drama film written and directed by John Lee Hancock. It is based on the 2006 book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game written by Michael Lewis which follows the adoptive life of Michael Oher by Sean (played here by Tim McGraw) and Leigh Anne Tuohy (Bullock).

What stands out in this movie other than the wonderful plot, directive style and cast is the wonderful performance by Bullock herself. She out did herself in this movie, carrying you along in all the emotions and even though I have never met the real Mrs Leigh Anne Tuohy, I felt like I have come to know, respect and love her.

Hancock makes the movie flow steadily on a cool pace and allows us to take in the parenting style and difficulty that comes with trying to make an adopted child feel at home.

The movie introduces us to Michael (Quinton Aaron)a tall big young man who from the get go you can tell does not fit in anywhere. The way Aaron portrayed Michael in this movie is almost at par with that of Bullock, so get ready to be entertained. He happens to be sleeping on the coach of a friends home, and the father of the friend helped Michael to get into a good school.

Some difficulties made the man put Michael out and we see him go back to struggling to get himself around.

The Tuohys on the other hand are a wealthy family who seem to have the world on their feet at the moment and they have seem Michael around, but had no reason to talk to him. One day after watching a play that their son was in, they see Michael walking about in the cold alone at night. Leigh Anne ask him where he was going and he tells her he is going to the gym to keep warm. Her heart was moved and she takes him home with them makes the couch for him and he slept there. From there things moved gently until Michael is now part of the family, but with that comes the struggles of Michael himself. He is slow and has learning difficulties which makes him shy away from everything. They made him join the high school football team and Michael after some comedy coaching starts to shine and we watch the struggle continue to get him to open up some more and be all he can be.

This movie grossed over $300 million in the box office based on a 29 million budget. Furthermore Bullock went on to win the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award in the best Actress category.

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005)

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005)

5/10

Starring

Sandra Bullock

Regina King

Enrique Murciano

William Shatner

Ernie Hudson

Heather Burns

Directed by John Pasquin

Again Sandra Bullock was just ahead of everyone in this movie and made the jokes cool. It was funny I have to say, but the script moved from a pageant tale to a buddy cop movie. I think the movie would have done better with another name, instead of it being a sequel to Miss Congeniality. You can feel it, the whole trying to tie the present case of kidnapping to her role from the first film, seemed shabby. The moment the movie stopped the whole tie-in nonsense of her being the face of the bureau which relates to her role in the first film this film became moderately bearable.

Have in mind that making a second part to Miss Congeniality was totally unnecessary, Bullock is also a producer on this film which like the first film is way too long. Here we are five minutes shy of two hours and you are can see the movie losing its appeal as the case went on. Instead of making the best of some instances that came up, the movie decided to just make secondary plots which were either left unresolved or had nothing to do with the main plot.

The plot starts with us seeing Gracie (Bullock) get dumped by her love interest from the first film. Trust me based on his performance in the first film I was happy he was not in this one. Then we meet Fuller (Regina King), an over-hyper personality who is always angry and thinks with her fist first. I will have to say I have seen Regina King perform in many movies, this is not one of her best performances. The blame totally falls on the bad script and weak stereotype characterization to which her character is based. The movie writer and director just wanted to play the stereotypical buddy cop movie pairing, where one partner is calm and the other a loose canon.

Well, Gracie's friend and winner of the pageant in the first film got kidnapped and Gracie was sent with Fuller to Las Vegas to be the calm face of the press that the FBI has everything under control. While there, Gracie noticed that the case was not going well enough, she starts to get involved to the annoyance of the FBIs in Vegas. Gracie and Fuller later got over their differences and have to work together against the order of their boss to solve the case.

The movie was not much of a commercial or critical success. It is safe enough to know that there will not be a third part of this movie.

Miss Congeniality (2000)

Miss Congeniality (2000)

5/10

Starring

Sandra Bullock

Michael Caine

Benjamin Bratt

Candice Bergen

William Shatner

Ernie Hudson

Directed by Donald Petrie

This movie was much better when I saw it back in 2000. Seeing it now I can only say this movie seems to have been made for people who have nothing better to do on a Sunday. The whole plot seems like you are watching an unaired TV-series. The plot itself is disjointed and the movies seems to not be sure which pace it wants to be. There are times when things are all fired up and we are moving, then there are times when it seems that nothing better is going on.

Then the romance was so obvious, the pair did not fit in my view and their story which led to them falling for one another was like a rejected bad draft of romance novel.

I will not deny it that this movie does not have its funny moments, but if you want to sit through this movie again, just note it is ten minutes shy of two hours. It is so long, that I can see many areas which can be cut and the movie will still deliver the same message.

With such a bad script, Sandra Bullock (who solely produced this film) did very well in this story that starts with us meeting her as a tom boy working for the FBI. Her name is Gracie and we see she has some issues following orders, which landed her on desk duty at the Bureau.

The agency is alerted by a letter from a known terrorist called "The Citizen" that there will be bomb at the upcoming Miss U.S.A beauty pageant. Gracie's partner was put in charge and based on Gracie's suggestions to plant an agent undercover at the event, Gracie happen to be the said agent. She was arranged to be at the pageant to replace Miss New Jersey, who was to be disqualified.

So Grace is prepped to be the new Miss New Jersey, and soon we discover that there is more going on in the pageant than what we see on the surface.

Grace has to go against orders to be able to discover the person behind the letters and stop them.

Other than Bullock everyone else in the movie just gave an average performance as expected of actors. Even Michael Caine who first acted gay seem to have forgotten about being gay as the movie continued.

The movie was a financial hit which led to a sequel done five years later named Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. Bullock's performance garnered her a Golden Globe Award nomination.

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

6/10

Starring

Sandra Bullock

Bill Pullman

Peter Gallagher

Peter Boyle

Glynis Johns

Jack Warden

Directed by Jon Turtletaub

Sandra Bullock has had a string of successes way back when, and While You Were Sleeping is one of them. If you get to see the movie now, you may not get the same thrill like you did back when it first came out in 1995. Well I did not get the same thrill, I guess some movies do not just fit the watch anytime you like glove.

This romantic comedy is a feel good movie that strings together some of the most unlikely events and uses the same cheesy formula that you can find and just makes it all better with a fantastic cast. Bullock on her own in this movie carried the bouquet, giving us a performance worth commending.

The movie plot introduces us to a lonely lady named Lucy (Sandra Bullock) who lost her mother when she was young and her father a year before the incidents that are before us. She is a teller at a train station and has developed a crush for one of the passengers (Peter played by Peter Gallagher), she dreams of him regularly and to her he is her prince charming. While working during the festive period, she saw Peter being mugged, the muggers pushed him and he fell on the tracks, hitting his head and passing out. With a train coming, Lucy runs on the tracks and saves Peter. While at the hospital, she is not allowed to be near him and a miss information led to the doctor to think that Lucy was Peter’s fiancée. When Peter’s family came to see him at the hospital they are told that he was saved by his fiancée which they were surprised to find out that it is someone they do not know.

But the thought that she saved their son made them warm up to her and soon she was invited to the family celebrations of the festive period and it is there she meets Jack (Bill Pullman).

She and Jack start spending more time together, which was because Jack did not believe that Lucy was engaged to Peter, and soon they started to develop feelings for one another.

Peter soon wakes up and that is where the shit hits the fan.

The movie was a huge financial hit and earned Bullock a Golden Globe nomination. For the not so spectacular plot one thing I can say to guarantee you will enjoy this movie is the cast. The characters in this movie will surprise you in their view of things and the actors did extremely well in their portrayal.

I am sure you should be able to catch this movie now on Disney+.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

6/10

Starring the voices of

George Clooney

Meryl Streep

Jason Schwartzman

Bill Murray

Owen Wilson

Directed by Wes Anderson

I guess I am one of the few who did not get to see Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009. I knew of its popularity as a nice stop motion animation, but always seem to never get to see it. Seeing it now I can see why many liked it. Other than being true to the adaptation it is based, the animation added more scenes to the main plot to give the movie a new beginning and a fleshed out ending. Also there is an upgrade done to the dialogue to cater for mature viewers. In addition, there were some backstory added, or some characters having their own side story or given more to do in this movie.

If you have read the 1970 Roald Dahl’s children book Fantastic Mr. Fox you can tell in this film where the book’s original plot starts and ends.

The story of Mr. Fox starts with a promise to be a better person, then it takes us to him falling back to his old ways. He steals from the three main farmers in his area Boggis (a chicken farmer), Bunce (a duck and goose farmer) and Bean (a turkey and apple farmer). The farmers were not having it and decided to catch Fox. They followed him to his home and shoot at it, then when they see he has escaped they dug it out, hell bent on catching him.

Fox now trapped does not allow the situation to get him down, and he too gets back at the trio and from then on we get to watch the two parties trying to get one over the other.

Wes Anderson (the director and co-writer of the screenplay) decided to add some scenes before the book main plot start. Those scenes focused on the relationship between Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), plus how they got to be living in the tree.

Where the book ends is not where the movie ends, because we do get to the final scene of the book, but Anderson decided to flesh it out a lot more (than he did in the beginning of the film). We still get the same ending of the farmers waiting to catch Mr. Fox, but the movie made them meaner and smarter.

What I really enjoyed in the movie is the way Anderson made Fox appeal to me the viewer. I enjoyed seeing him struggle, thinking on his feet and always never allowing his circumstance to overwhelm him.

Although the movie was a critical success it was not a financial one. The movie also had a bad run at the Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score, but lost both to Disney's Up.

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)

6/10

Starring

Forest Whitaker

Keegan-Michael Key

Anika Noni Rose

Madalen Mills

Ricky Martin

Directed by David E. Talbert

Jingle Jangle is a musical fantasy movie set for the festive periods and it tells the tale of a toymaker who falls into hard times and needs that tiny spark of hope to get back on his feet. That spark came from his beautiful granddaughter.

The movie has some fantastic musical numbers and the acting from all the cast is inviting to make you want to sit through the movie. The characters are memorable and the movie is well suited for the family and it will surely entertain.

The movie is both written and directed by filmaker David E. Talbert. I want to think he made this magical Christmas movie to stand in the same frame as the oldies which do not feature black folks in the forefront. The movie is not perfect, there are some pacing problems and it takes quite a while to finally get going, but regardless it is a nice movie.

Talbert’s movie starts in a toy shop of an inventor named Jeronicus. Jeronicus whole world were his inventions and his family, in this nice intro into his life we meet his young apprentice Gustafson who also wants to be as good as Jeronicus.

We can see Gustafson fail in one of his inventions and the store occupants laugh at him as they all crave the toys done by Jeronicus. A parcel arrives and we are brought closer into Jeronicus world as we watch him open this parcel which happens to be the missing thing for his new invention, a robot toy which can talk and move by itself. The invention produced a toy called Diego (voiced by Ricky Martin). Diego we immediately see is self absolved, vain and wants all the attention. When he finds out that Jeronicus has plans to make more of him, he was angry and jealous. He was able to poison and persuade the young naive Gustafson to steal Jeronicus book of inventions and the plans to make more of him.

That singular act ruined Jeronicus as it sucked him into a world where he wanted to get back on top. Reason being Gustafson (Keegan-Michael Key) started spinning out toys which Jeronicus (Forest Whitaker) has not yet made. Soon Jeronicus was no longer popular and he lost everything, even his family.

His daughter left him and we see Jeronicus at the mercy of the bank as he was about to lose everything. He gets a visit from his granddaughter, Journey (Madalen Mills) one day who was so curious to meet her grandfather. Journey was like her grandfather smart, inventive and full of life (like Jeronicus used to be).

Soon the pair were working together and against them is Gustafson and Diego who are still after anything new Jeronicus comes up with.

The movie is about how this pair of grandfather and granddaughter go up against the other pair of Gustafson and Diego.

The movie is very colorful and field with casts that deliver grand performances of their own.

You can catch this on Netflix.

The New Mutant (2020)

The New Mutant (2020)

3/10

Starring

Maisie Williams

Anya Taylor-Joy

Charlie Heaton

Alice Braga

Blu Hunt

Henry Zaga

Directed by Josh Boone

I don’t understand why this movie is this badly written. The director did not do a good job in the movie’s pacing – as there were moments in the movie where it seems like I was being dragged along in a planned delay of what was “really happening.”

I cannot understand how the director got so engaged in the mystery and keeping the whole incident/hunting of the facility at the forefront that he forgot that the movie was meant to entertain. The movie goes further in changing the role of Dr. Cecilia Reyes comic role and just makes a whole mess of what at first looked like something with potential.

I also did not feel the cast members except for Maisie Williams (who plays Wolfbane) and Alice Braga (as Dr. Reyes). The rest did not give the best they could, may be it is due to the script or the director, but I was not impressed. Seeing this movie after watching Anya Taylor-Joy (who plays Magik) in The Queen's Gambit if not for her fantastic acting in that film I would have written her off as someone who still has a lot to learn.

The movie starts with a very devastating event happening at a reservation during a tornado. The destruction turned young Dani to an orphan. She passes out during the whole ordeal and wakes up at a facility. There we meet Dr Reyes who we discover is keeping not only Dani there, but four other young mutants. Dani is told by Reyes that she is a mutant and she is in this facility to learn to control her powers before she is being moved up to join the X-men. Dani’s main challenge is that she is unaware of her powers and how they work.

The other people in the facility are Rahne/Wolfbane, Illyana/Magik, Sam/Cannonball and Bobby/Sunspot.

While there we discover their different character traits and attributes and soon the facility became a place of terror. The young mutants are not getting any better in controlling their powers and rage. We start to witness them having dreams about their pasts and those dreams become manifestations and real to touch hunting them all in the facility. With Dr. Reyes having little to no power to stop and control what is happening.

I guess Disney just wanted this movie out of the way in the launching of their new world of mutants. We should note that this movie was done by Fox before the Disney acquisition.

The movie is boring and wasteful of the talents on screen, I do not think the writers and directors had a firm grip of what there were supposed to be launching, because this was a bad film.