The Meg

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Jonas Taylor (played by Jason Statham) is a deep sea rescue man. He retires after being disgraced following a rescue that led to the deaths of his two teammates. Five years later, his old crew asks for his help on another resuce mission. This leads to Jonas and his crew battling it out with a megalodon. The movie is pretty much advertised and billed as Jason Statham vs. a shark. That's what I wathced this movie looking for, and that's what I got out of it. The actors all seem like they're enjoying themselves (especially Jason Statham and Rainn Wilson). The character development is admittedly pretty thin. The little character development that is there is pretty stock. A lot of it comes from what you would get out of action movies from the 80s and 90s. However, there does seem to be something of a self-aware wink and nod to it in parts. It almost feels like the movie understands the cliches of the genre, and has a little bit of fun with them. The issue with this is I don't feel they do quite enough with that. I also think the PG-13 rating is a bit of a hindrance.It doesn't fully allow the movie to really go balls-to-the-wall. I love the look of the underwater scenes. There's some incredible detail. The shark itself also looks pretty decent (even if you can tell that the shark is CGI). Despite it's very noticable flaws, I still recommend The Meg. It promises Jason Statham fighting a shark, and that's what it delivers. In my eyes, it doesn't really matter whether this is a truly "good" movie or not.

6 / 10    

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

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I’ve never exactly made it a secret that I’m no fan of Teen Titans Go. I honestly think it’s one of the worst shows I have ever seen. I couldn’t even get through one episode before I shut it off and stopped watching. Naturally, I was less than thrilled at the thought of the show getting a theatrical movie. The first surprise I got was the thought that there were moments in the trailer that made me laugh. This actually extended to the movie as well. I will gladly compliment the voice cast (as the actors voicing the Titans are established voice actors like Greg Cipes, Khary Payton, and Tara Strong). The supporting cast is rounded by the likes of Kristen Bell, Will Arnett, and Nicolas Cage (voicing Superman in an awesome in-joke). Some of the Meta jokes worked. I mentioned having Nicolas Cage voice Superman. There’s also a decent dig at the movie Green Lantern. The whole story of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is the Teen Titans wanting to get their own movie. The movie also has a funny cameo, and a good dig at the glut of superhero movies we’ve been getting for the last several years. A lot of the jokes just don’t land either however. There’s a point where the Teen Titans try to be real superheroes, but are distracted when they sing a rap song about themselves. This wasn’t funny to me, so much as confusing. This movie can also suffer from letting certain jokes go on too long. There’s a running joke about supervillains and how they have menacing sounding names. It was decent the first two times. The third time seemed to quit varying the joke, and just wasn’t funny this time. So, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies wasn’t a god-awful disaster of a movie, but that doesn’t make it a good movie either. It’s just kind of a so-so effort, at best.

5 / 10 

The Predator

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The Predator is the fourth film in the Predator franchise. Shane Black co-wrote this film alongside Fred Dekker (the man who directed The Monster Squad). Black also served as the film's director. As much as I love Shane Black, and as much as I was anticipating this movie, it was a pretty mixed bag. The performances in the movie are good (Boyd Holbrook and Olivia Munn serve as standouts). However, some of the characters in the film feel underutilized. For example, Jake Busey appears in the movie as the son of Gary Busey's character from Predator 2. This was something that interested me in the movie when I had first heard about it happening. Ultimately, he only appears in one scene, and has no development to him whatsoever. A lot of the characters feel thin. The soldiers in this movie have quirks instead of personality. If they weren't played by people like Thomas Jane and Keegan-Michael Key, I wouldn't be able to tell you a thing about them. Hell, their names are brought up multiple times, and I struggled to remember which name belonged to which character. The humor was incredibly hit and miss, with more misses than hits (something I never expected out of a Shane Black script). Every time Keegan-Michael Key cracked a joke, I just didn't laugh. The action scenes are probably the best parts of the movie. They are actually very well handled. The characters that Holbrook, Munn, and Jacob Tremblay play are actually the characters who seem like they have the most development to them, and really were the only characters that I found myself invested in in any way. A lot of the reviews I've seen for this movie said it was a giant mess. I see where those reviews are coming from, but i don't know if I can go that far. It may seem like I'm bashing on this movie, and that's not my goal. I didn't hate this movie, I just didn't love it either. My feelings towards The Predator are more mixed than anything else.

5 / 10   

Sorry to Bother You

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Sorry to Bother You was something of an interesting experience to watch in theaters. I watched this movie  having occasionally seen ads, and never sure of what exactly the plot was going to be. It was enough to get my interest. It started off by going in what seemed like a normal direction. The film follows Cashis Green (played by Lakeith Stanfield) as he rises through the ranks as a telemarketer. For most of the movie, he seems like he's kind of just going through the motions. His girlfriend Detroit (played by Tessa Thompson) and his friends (played by Steven Yeun and Jermaine Fowler) are much more extreme with their personal beliefs, going so far as to quit their jobs until they get better pay. This kind of movie seems like one of you've seen multiple times before, but writer and director Boots Riley tells the story in a unique, almost drug trip kind of way. Without giving anything away. Once the character Steve Lift (played by Armie Hammer) enters into the film, this movie really takes a weird direction that I really didn't see coming. This movie has a pretty strong anti-capitalist leaning, but is easily the best movie since Fight Club to really tackle this subject. It's weird. It's surreal, but you can never really predict where exactly it's going to go or how it's going to get there, which is why I really do have to recommend watching this movie.

9 / 10  

The Lion King

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The Lion King is a story everybody knows by now. This movie is seen as the height of the Disney Renaissance, and is, therefore, a landmark film by all accounts. I was curious because this was the first time I had seen the movie in about five years. This movie is almost 25 years old, and it still holds up remarkably well. The flaws (however few there are) were a little more noticeable when I looked at this movie with a more critical lens. Some of the characters had their voices swapped when it came time for that character to sing, and it could be jarring. That said, the animation is still excellent. The songs are just as catchy now as they were when I was a kid. It probably helps that I watched it with an audience that knew all of the songs. There is a sad scene in the movie that still hits me, even after all of these years. The humor still really works, especially when it easily could have come off as forced. Instead, it feels fairly natural. Scar is an amazing villain (and Jeremy Irons delivers a perfect performance). The same could easily be said of James Earl Jones as the voice of Mufasa. Despite minor noticeable flaws, this movie still holds up years later as one of Disney’s greatest efforts.

9 / 10 

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

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Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) must deal with the fallout after a mission goes wrong. Hunt and his team are shadowed by CIA agent August Walker (played by Henry Cavill in what might be his best performance as of yet), who is essentially there to course correct. The team is tasked with breaking Solomon Lane (Sean Harris reprising his role from Mission: Impossible - Fallout) out of police custody. This is probably the best Mission: Impossible movie yet. This movie has a lot of callbacks to previous movies, essentially tying the whole franchise together. There's a character introduced in the movie called the White Widow (played by a scene stealing Vanessa Kirby). She is the daughter of arms dealer Max from the first movie. This is something I welcome because it really ties everything into being a part of a bigger universe, compared to the first five movies having more of an episodic feel to them. Once again Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust proves to be a standout. This movie fleshes out the character of Solomon Lane much more. I came out of Rogue Nation finding him to be fairly one-note, and not very memorable. In this movie, he's actually fairly intimidating and manages to go head-to-head in a fist fight with Ilsa. The humorous moments in the movie actually work. They could have easily come off as forced, but they work within the context of the movie. As usual, the action sequences (and Tom Cruise's dedication) are nothing short of amazing. This is a movie has to be seen, and I think is destined to be a classic of the action genre.

10 / 10  

The Happytime Murders

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In a world where humans and puppets co-exist in everyday life, the world's first puppet cop, named Phil Phillips, is now a private detective who had been disgraced as a cop. When someone starts killing the cast members of a puppet-led sitcom called The Happytime Gang, Phillips must team up with his old partner (played by Melissa McCarthy) to solve the murders. This movie was a solid way to kill 90 minutes. I honestly found it genuinely funny, despite being torn apart by most critics. There were some moments where I genuinely belly-laughed, though I will admit there weren't a ton of those. That said, I did laugh a lot throughout. I also actually bought the chemistry between Melissa McCarthy and the puppet, which is something that can easily be difficult to do. The sense of humor leans heavily into raunch territory, which is going to be off-putting for a lot of people. This is something that could have backfired, but it really worked for me. Some of the jokes with Joel McHale did get old after awhile because they just felt like variations of the same joke. The Happytime Murders worked in a lot of the areas where it should have worked. The performances worked for me. The mystery worked for me. Occasionally, some of the jokes don't land (which is typical for a comedy). This is a movie I recommend seeing, but only as a rental, and not in theaters.

7 / 10