Crawl

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A woman named Haley Keller (played by Kaya Scodelario) goes to her family home during a category 5 hurricane in order to find her father (played by Barry Pepper). The two have to survive both the hurricane and alligators lurking in the depths. I think Crawl can be best described as popcorn entertainment. The movie’s about an hour and a half. It seems like it just wants to show up and do its thing. Now, it helps that I didn’t go into this film expecting it to be a masterpiece. I mean this movie does fall into a lot of horror movie traps. Characters are introduced that are just there to die. There are some plot holes that I have to question. With the exceptions of our main leads, a lot of the actors aren’t very good. The visual effects are solid. They aren’t anything I can call amazing, but they actually work well enough. But, if I’m being completely honest, this is a movie that clearly knows what it is. It doesn’t show any interest in transcending the genre. It succeeds at being a simple creature feature. It also takes itself just seriously enough. It doesn’t go for tongue-in-cheek laughs, but still knows exactly what it is. I don’t always need a movie that elevates the horror genre, or pushes the boundaries of what the genre can be. Sometimes I just need a movie that’s purely fun.     

7 / 10     

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

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Picking up not too long after the events of John Wick: Chapter 2, John finds himself in a dangerous situation as he must navigate Manhattan, and will also travel across the world in spots as well. This is one of those movies I was really excited for. For the most part, it really didn’t disappoint me. The acting is pretty solid all around. I was really happy to see them bring Laurence Fishburne back for another small but memorable role. I also really liked Halle Berry as the character Sofia. She’s a woman with ties to John’s past. However, I wish she had a bigger role, even if I really liked what I saw of her. I also loved Mark Dacascos as the villainous Zero. Zero is this character who feels like he’s fanboying over John Wick one second, and legitimately willing to kill him the next second. In less capable hands, I might actually hate this character, but I really think he works in this movie. Once again, the action feels like the true star of the show, and I mean this as the highest compliment. The action feels brutal in the best way possible. The way Chad Stahelski films it is exceptional too. I can’t express just how glad I am that it feels like we’re beginning to move away from shaky cam. I love that you can actually make out every aspect of the action in this film. On the more negative side of things, there’s a subplot introduced in this film I think should have been reworked a little bit. As it stands, it doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s hard to talk about, because a lot of the specifics deal with spoilers. It’s also the part of the movie that kind of seems to drag on the most for me, and is the one part of the movie that kind of disrupts the flow a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum is still a damn entertaining movie, and pretty solid overall. But, I also feel like it’s probably my least favorite of the three films as well. 

8 / 10