Seventh Son

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Seventh Son is the story of Thomas Ward, a young man who learns that he has a great destiny because he is the seventh son of a seventh son. My point is, you’ve absolutely seen the story of the hero and mentor done before, and done better. This case can easily be seen through the stories of characters like Luke Skywlaker, Harry Potter, and Neo, just to name a few. Lead actor Ben Barnes is charmless, dull, and lifeless in his performance. He has no charisma with any of his co-stars, least of all, his equally dull romantic foil, a witch played by Alicia Vikander. Barnes’s casting is all the more sad when you realize the far more talented Kit Harrington is cast to only appear in the first ten minutes, and ends up giving the best performance in the movie, in my opinion. Oscar-caliber performers like Jeff Bridges, Djimon Honsou, and Julianne Moore should be able to save the film. However, the two each overact to the point that they just come off as comical and embarrassing. Hell, Bridges seems to lack absolutely any interest in being in the movie, and just seems more content with drunk-mumbling all of lines. The writing for the movie is also very weak, and some of the plot elements feel either A.) rushed, B.) glossed-over, C.) unanswered, or in other cases D.) all of the above. To be fair, Seventh Son isn’t a total loss, however. As I’ve said, Kit Harrington gives what I consider to be the movie’s best performance. The visual effects are, in my opinion, actually really good, and some of the landscapes look great. Sergei Bodrov’s direction is a bit of a mixed bag. He doesn’t seem to be able to direct the dramatic moments very comfortably, and while the action sequences do look good, they also aren’t filmed with enough flair for them to stand out.

4 / 10     

Unfinished Business

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Right from the beginning, Unfinished Business just felt off. I had a lot of the same problems with this movie that I did when I watched Get Hard. This is a movie that has a fairly talented cast but almost never manages to conjure a laugh. The actors all lack chemistry together, and can’t seem to make the awkward writing work. Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson suffer the most in the movie give truly awful performances that are worth Razzie nominations. Nick Frost is an actor I'm glad to see in this movie because he's getting work, but I just think he was incredibly underused here, and absolutely deserves more. The one positive I am honestly able to conjure up for the movie is the more dramatic, serious moments. Vince Vaughn is pretty good in the small moments with his children and dealing with their bullying problems, and as far as I’m concerned, he was believable enough as a concerned father who just wants to finish the deal and go home. I think it’s kind of sad that a small subplot is far better, and more interesting than the main plot of the movie. Ultimately, the best thing I can recommend with Unfinished Business would be to skip it entirely.

2 / 10     

Pan

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Pan is an origin story on the Peter Pan character. The movie chronicles Peter Pan’s (admittedly decent newcomer Levi Miller) inaugural trip to the place called Neverland, and shows how he meets and befriends Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily (a miscast Rooney Mara), and future enemies James Hook (Garrett Hedlund) and Mr. Smee (Ahmed Akhtar), and helps them in their battle against the villainous Blackbeard (an overacting Hugh Jackman in what may be the worst performance in his career). After the first 20 minutes, I could tell exactly what I was in for. The result is an entertainingly bad acid trip of a movie. As I have somewhat said already, Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard is hilariously over the top. Despite the fact Rooney Mara was miscast, I still feel that she did the best she could with what she was given. Elements of this movie feel disjointed, like the incorporation of jukebox musical numbers and the movie forgetting about them just as quick. The first ten minutes of the movie feels like a completely different movie compared to the rest. The visual effects, for the most part, are terrible, but much like the rest of the film, they are an interesting sort of bad. But, if I had to pick an element that I felt was the absolute worst, I would have to say it was Joe Wright’s direction. His choices were bizarre and he never seemed comfortable with the direction he wanted to take the movie. I do have to point out that the screenplay also feels very rushed, and there are noticeable holes in the plot, with questions that don’t seem to be very well answered.  

6 / 10   

The Last Witch Hunter

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800 years ago witch hunter Kaulder, played by Vin Diesel, is cursed with immortality by the witch queen. Now, when an old friend, played by Michael Caine, is cursed, Kaulder teams up with Caine’s replacement (Elijah Wood) and a young witch (Rose Leslie of Game of Thrones). Based on a lot of what I heard, The Last Witch Hunter is a movie I was excited for. The basic plot sounded cool, and the cast involved got me excited. Now, the question is whether or not this movie is any good. Personally, I think it’s a fun popcorn movie. The overall story isn’t the greatest, or the most original. In my opinion, the best character in the movie is the witch Chloe, played by Rose Leslie. Rose gives pretty solid supporting performance, and works off lead star Vin Diesel pretty well. On the other hand, I felt that Elijah Wood, who I think is a good actor, was miscast. I believed him when played his part as wide-eyed and naive, but I didn’t find him to be that believable when he was supposed to be threatening. The effects aren’t the greatest, and there are some pretty noticeable plot-holes, but the negatives are outweighed by the positives.

7 / 10  

Spotlight

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In Spotlight, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, and Brian d’Arcy James play investigative reporters who stumble upon the cover up of Catholic priests sexually abusing young boys. I do have to compliment the movie’s writer-director Tom McCarthy seems to work magic by making these people feel real, fleshing them out, and giving them depth. For the most part, this movie is uncompromising. It doesn’t really pull any punches when it looks at the topic in question. The actors are all really good in the movie, even Rachel McAdams, who I will admit I’m not the biggest fan of. and they all have great chemistry together. I believe that all of these people are good friends and a genuine team. The one real flaw that I have is in the pacing. I don’t have an issue with the fact that the pace is slower. The only problem I have is that for me, at points, the slower pace does cause the movie to drag a little bit. Everything else is really able to come together to make an overall great film that I think is actually worth checking out, though this will probably be a solid one-and-done movie for me. 

8 / 10    

The Hateful Eight

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The Hateful Eight is the new film from Quentin Tarantino, and one of my most anticipated movies of the year. As usual, Mr. Tarantino delivers exactly what he promises in all of his movies. I will say that if you’ve never been a big fan of Quentin Tarantino, this isn’t likely to convert you, as it is very much a Quentin Tarantino movie. The cast is great. All of them work well in their roles, and off each other. But, once again, the real star here is Tarantino himself. The script is great, and the actors deliver Tarantino’s dialogue to near-perfection, especially Samuel L. Jackson, who is always awesome. Tarantino does extremely well building tension, as you fully understand that every character has a dark side, and may or may not be who they say they are. The setting of a cabin in the middle of a blizzard works in the movie’s favor, helping build the tension by adding a claustrophobic feel to the movie. As per usual, the film is littered with blood and swearing, which is pretty much a given in a Quentin Tarantino movie, and it is unbelievably entertaining. In terms of flaws, there was one plot point that was brought up that I don’t think was explained, or at least, not as well as it could have been. Other than that, this was a damn good movie, and absolutely worth the watch if you ever get the chance to see it. 

9 / 10   

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

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As a long-time Star Wars fan, I was happy to see that The Force Awakens was able to deliver as much as it did. Admittedly, the movie does play out on a lot of the same beats that A New Hope did. Fortunately, J.J. Abrams is a talented enough director that he is able to do it well, and I am able to look past that. I have to compliment the cast on all fronts.  Franchise newcomers Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and John Boyega compliment and work off each well enough when they are on-screen together. The visual effects are fantastic. Most of the effects are practical, something you don’t see very often these days. Harrison Ford as Han Solo is at the best he’s been in a while from a performance standpoint. Ultimately, this movie does just what it needs to do. It rinses the bad taste of the prequels out of our mouths. Adam Driver makes a memorable villain as Kylo Ren. He is both menacing and childish in his persona and demeanor. Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron oozes charisma and cool. The action sequences are breathtaking, and the fast pace works in the movie’s favor. The Force Awakens is still a great movie despite hitting some familiar beats. 

9 / 10       

Unfriended

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As a horror fan, I’ll admit I kind of liked Unfriended. It’s not free of problems, by any means, but it still is an enjoyable enough popcorn horror flick. The movie is played out as a Skype conversation on a teenage girl’s computer. One thing I do like is the attention to the little details. The picture is often grainy and lags quite a bit, just like an actual computer screen. The actors in the movie are pretty good. They’re not godsends or anything, but they do their jobs well enough. On that note, most of the characters are unlikable jackasses. I did like the main girl, which is a good thing. The story was interesting enough, even if the scares didn’t really work in my opinion. There was some disturbing imagery, but that took a backseat to jump scares a little too often. The end result was a somewhat uneven, but mostly good horror flick that’s worth watching at least once. 

7 / 10       

Get Hard

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Get Hard centers on a businessman (Will Ferrell) who is arrested for fraud and embezzlement. He asks for help to “get hard” before he goes to prison from the guy who has watched his car (Kevin Hart) because…misunderstandings, lies, shenanigans, etc. you know know the drill. Yeah, even 20 minutes I could tell I had seen this story play out. Based on the fact that I like Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, I thought I might like this movie, even if the movie was going to be a touch formulaic. However, at a point, I realized that there was only so much I could take of the racist and homophobic jokes. I wanted to like this movie. I really did. Unfortunately, the movie just wasn’t all that funny. Will Ferrell and Kevin actually do have decent chemistry, but that’s only because they are talented comedians stuck in a bad movie. There were some jokes that got me to laugh here and there, but they were so few, that most of the time, I was just left in a state of discomfort. I think the writing is where the movie suffers the most. 9 times out of 10, the jokes don’t work. Half of the characters are unlikable stereotypes. The other half are just stereotypes. In comedy, writing often should be the strongest aspect of the movie. Because it is so weak here, the whole movie suffers for it. 

3 / 10      

The Ridiculous 6

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Okay, when I say that this was a bad movie, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “of course it’s bad, man. Adam Sandler hasn’t been funny in years.” Right, but The Cobbler and Pixels aren’t as bad as, say Jack and Jill. This movie absolutely includes a lot of the problems that have plagued most of Adam Sandler’s recent movies. There were elements to it I did enjoy, though not too many. Some of the jokes made me laugh, and there were actors I thought did alright in the movie, like Terry Crews and Jorge Garcia (Hurley from Lost). A lot of the actors just feel miscast. Nick Swardson is in the movie, and I’ve never been the biggest fan of him as an actor. Part of my problem with Taylor Lautner in the movie was that I don’t think his character was very well-written, so he didn’t seem to have much to go on besides act annoying and dumb, and do a stupid voice. Great actors like Harvey Keitel, Danny Trejo, and Steve Buscemi all kind of get pushed to the sidelines, and all Buscemi does is embarrass himself. But,my biggest issue with the cast and characters involves a couple cameos that I really have to question. So, there’s a scene where the main characters have to rob this poker game. At this poker game are General Custer, Mark Twain, and Wyatt Earp, played by David Spade, Vanilla Ice, and Blake Shelton respectively. Seriously!? The movie is also 2 hours long, which is a good 20 or 30 minutes too long for a comedy. Sadly, a great cast and a couple good jokes here and there end up feeling wasted in what ends being an overly long, somewhat racist cringe-fest that might actually rival Jack and Jill for the worst movie Adam Sandler has ever starred in.

2 / 10   

Run All Night

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In Run All Night, a limo driver played by Joel Kinnaman witnesses a crime, which reunites him with his estranged father (Liam Neeson) as the two spend the night running from a hit man (Common), a mob boss (Ed Harris), the mob boss’s men, and the cops, corrupt and honest alike. All Run All Night really had to do was be better than Taken 3. It succeeded at this job far better than it probably should have. Liam Neeson is fantastic in the movie, portraying a broken man with a lot of demons, who may not be the most likable person you can possibly meet. His chemistry with Ed Harris is fantastic, and I really bought that the two were friends. Run All Night also proves to me that actor Joel Kinnaman is improving, though I still think he has a ways to go. On the more negative side, there are some uses of shaky cam, and they can be annoying. The difference between this and a movie like Taken 3 was that I could actually follow what happening in the action sequences. The movie is harsh, violent, gritty, and uncompromising. This movie can be added to the catalogue of the great resurgence of 80s-style action movies, even if it does waver here and there.

8 / 10    

Home

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Okay, so the best way I can describe the movie Home is that it’s fine. It’s good, but it’s not great. the character of Tip, the young girl is my favorite character in the movie. Rihanna actually did alright voicing her. The character was well-written. She’s spunky. She gets mad. She feels hurt. She gets sad. She enjoys dancing and listening to music. Basically, she’s a kid. I actually do like the character of Oh voiced by Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory). I actually do feel sorry for him. There weren’t many times where I laughed really hard. I was okay with that because I felt like the filmmakers were a little more focused on the story they were trying to tell. The story did keep me invested, even if was a bit familiar and cliched. At points, the added pop music does feel a bit tacked on because I don’t think it always fit the mood. The pacing felt off. I felt like the movie was trying to jumble between a slow pace and break-neck speed because they needed to keep the attention span of the movie’s target audience. The final thing that really bothered me was the way the aliens spoke. What I’m trying to say here is, it wasn’t exactly my dream to see half of the comments section on YouTube made a reality. For example, one of them might say “Today is best day ever” or “Do you want to come to my warming of house party tonight?” Overall, I enjoyed Home as a fun family film, despite its occasional annoyances and dips into cliches. 

7 / 10  

Krampus

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Krampus is exactly my kind of Christmas movie. It's a sort of twisted take on the idea of learning the true meaning of Christmas. It's about a young boy who desperately wants things to be good on his Christmas, and back to the way things were before. He essentially loses the Christmas spirit, and unintentionally brings about Krampus, who is basically the flip side of the St. Nicholas coin. I want to start with the negatives I had with the movie, because they are very few for me. First, the characters. By that, I mean half of them I liked almost right away, and the other half took me awhile to get around to liking them. Now, I want to talk about everything else. The movie is co-written and directed by a man named Michael Dougherty. He's the guy who wrote and directed Trick 'r Treat, one of my all-time favorite movies. The dark, twisted sense of humor from Trick 'r Treat is completely present throughout the entirety of this movie. The effects are pretty solid in my opinion, too. I really dug the look of Krampus, and I liked the designs of all of his toys from hell. The actors are good, too. Adam Scott is really good in the movie as a sort of nice-guy father in contrast to the asshole characters he normally plays. In all, Krampus was a fun Christmas horror-comedy that I had an absolute blast with.

9 / 10   

Taken 3

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Taken 3 was an attempt (emphasis on the word attempt) to take the franchise in a different direction the previous two movies. The problem is, they tried doing this by rehashing the plot of The Fugitive, further proving Taken would have worked better as a solo film than a franchise. Before I get into the issues I have with the movie, I want to talk about what I did like. I liked Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, and Forest Whitaker. I also liked some of the smaller moments involving those three particular actors. And then, there’s everything else. Dougray Scott in this movie reminds me of Javier Bardem in The Gunman. He’s a good actor who I think just gave a bad performance. As I’ve already said the plot is The Fugitive-lite. A man’s wife is murdered, and he gets framed. He then goes on a hunt for the real killer while dodging the authorities who are out looking for him. But, by far, the worst aspect of this movie lies in the direction. I’m just not a big fan of director Olivier Megaton. Every single action sequence in the movie is an ugly, nauseating, incomprehensible, shaky-cam riddled mess. The editing in the movie is annoying. I swear to God, it feels like shots can’t last longer than 10 seconds, otherwise the audience might lose interest. In terms of the wife’s death in the movie, I feel like that should have been an unexpected moment in the movie. That moment was, unfortunately, given away in the trailer. In the end, all Taken 3 does for me, is assure me that we don’t need or want this franchise to go on any longer.

3 / 10  

Focus

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Focus is about a con man (Will Smith) who takes a young woman (Margot Robbie) under his wing when she wants to learn the tricks of the trade. The two have a brief relationship, which doesn’t end well. Three years later, the con man runs into her while he is working a job, and things start happening between the two. This could have easily turned so much worse than it did. Fortunately, the final product ended up being a pretty solid flick. The movie is mostly able to work because of its talented leads. Will Smith practically oozes charm and charisma, and Margot Robbie proves here that she wasn’t just a one-trick pony with The Wolf of Wall Street. Smith and Robbie have fantastic chemistry together and they are able to work off each other really well. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a very good thing because the romance aspect of the movie is really important to the plot. One thing I really have to compliment this movie for is really sidestepping the whole “misunderstanding” cliche often found in romantic comedies, a cliche I absolutely hate. The dialogue is pretty solid, and the actors in the movie are all able to sell it. Whenever one character would go through how a con was pulled off, I was completely sucked into the scene. So, in short, what we have here is a pretty damn good movie with solid writing, good acting that is anchored by the two unbelievably likable leads. 

9 / 10   

Creed

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How do I describe my thoughts on the movie Creed? In a word: fantastic. The movie has a lot of emotional weight to it that you can really feel. There’s a lot of different parts to it that come together to make this one of the best movies of the year. First off, the acting in the movie is phenomenal. Michael B. Jordan owns the role of Adonis Creed. Sylvester Stallone is probably the best he’s been in a very long time from a performance standpoint. Jordan and Stallone share a wonderful student-teacher, and further, a surrogate father-son relationship and chemistry together. The two share a lot of parallels to each other in the story, and they are able to form a bond that way. The movie also has two pretty big, solid fights. I loved the both of them. I, echoing the voices of plenty of other critics, personally love the first major fight the best. I love that it’s filmed to look like one shot. Director Ryan Coogler has made what I think has a shot at becoming a classic film in the years to come. Granted, only time will tell. As someone who really hasn’t seen any of the previous Rocky movies in full, I think I can pretty safely say that you don’t necessarily need to be a Rocky fan to enjoy this movie, but it probably doesn’t hurt either. 

10 / 10  

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

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I wanted to like the final Hunger Games a lot more than I did. Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't me saying I didn't like the movie. I did. It's just that I thought that some of the flaws were a bit more noticeable here. First off, I wasn't a big fan of the way the movie was paced. I honestly thought some of the moments where the movie kind of started to drag could've been tightened up. I honestly think the movie was about ten or fifteen minutes too long. The other thing I wish could've been handled better was the movie's tone. At points it felt like the movie was trying a little too hard to be a romantic drama film. At other points, it felt like they were aiming for a suspenseful action thriller. Personally, these were the moments I enjoyed more. There was a sewer sequence that was probably my personal favorite. The suspense was really well built up, and the payoff was pretty damn good. It felt like something out of one of the first two Alien movies, it was that good. I also really have to give props to the actors in the movie too. Seeing as this is the fourth movie in a franchise, it's possible at this point for the cast to just start phoning it in. None of them do. They all have a pretty solid emotional backbone to their performances. However, I do wish some of the supporting players got a little more to do. I can understand why the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman's role was so small, but I really would've liked to have seen a little more from Jena Malone, Donald Sutherland, and Woody Harrelson. So, yeah, I thought this movie was "good", but I really wanted to be able to say I thought it was "great".

7 / 10   

Sicario

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Sicario is a movie I had been looking forward to for a while. Just from the opening scene of the movie, I knew what I was in for. Director Denis Villeneuve masterfully manages to bring to life a grim, bleak world. However, I would like to compliment the occasional interjections of humor, particularly from Josh Brolin’s Matt Graver. Graver is an undercover CIA agent with a penchant for wearing sandals. As good as I really do think Brolin is, it’s the performances by Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro that really manage to carry the movie for me. Major props should also go to director of photography Roger Deakins, as the film is incredibly shot and filmed. Everything seemed to be crafted and come together in a way that I found the movie to be very tense. Oftentimes, I didn’t know what direction the movie was going to take, and felt things could start going wrong at any moment. The climax of the film even manages to seamlessly shift from Emily Blunt’s point of view to that of Benicio del Toro. In a lesser movie, this change may have bogged the movie down a little, but it the hands of Mr. Villeneuve, it ends up working in the movie’s favor. Ultimately, I didn’t really have any issues with the movie, and firmly believe it to be one of the year’s absolute best. 

10 / 10    

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

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As you can probably imagine, I was not looking forward to seeing Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension. I didn’t really like the fourth or fifth movies very much at all. Everything that seemed to precede this movie screamed cash grab to me, right down to putting it in 3D, which I stand by as a horrible idea for a found footage movie, and I refuse to ever see this movie in 3D. Now, let’s get into my actual experience with watching it. Within the first five minutes, this movie proved to me that I didn’t really need to give a rat’s ass about the movie’s characters. The very beginning tries to tie this one in with the third movie, almost seeming to ignore the previous two films in the franchise (or the ones that started to make this franchise suck). One thing I will outright say, is that you do actually start to be able to see the activity. Honestly, as far as I’m concerned, that takes away one of the few scary elements the entirety of the franchise had going for it. Of course, it also doesn’t help the ghost in the movie looks like the Venom Symbiote. One of the things I realized is that the movie actually bored the hell out me. I think part of this comes from the fact that the series has gotten so repetitive and predictable. At this point, the scares feel cheap, lazy, forced, and obvious. To be fair, as negative as I’ve been with this review, I will say that the actors in the movie are ok. They aren’t the best, but they aren’t the worst, either. They just kind of do their job.  Honestly, at this point, I’ve been down the road with bad Paranormal Activity sequels, so this movie can’t really make me that mad, but that still does not a good movie make. 

2 / 10 

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

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Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is one of the hardest movies I've ever had to describe in a review. It's a movie about scouts trying to get to a party, all the while trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Somehow, this movie has too much plot, and no plot at all. Throughout the movie I had to wonder something. There were plenty of jokes that I really should've laughed at. The problem with all of these jokes is, instead of cracking a smile, I was asking myself "what the fuck is happening right now?" The movie is also poorly written. It feels as though the director and the writers put the job of improv on actors who didn't know any better, as most of the time it just feels like the actors are rambling on and on. To be fair, the actors in the movie are trying, and they aren't bad, per se. What they're given to work with is. The best character in the movie, in my opinion, is a character named Denise. Basically, she's a stripper (or cocktail waitress, as she refers to herself) who has a decent amount of grace under pressure and seems to know her way around a shotgun. In the end, despite liking the acting, and some of the characters, the movie is still a mess that is poorly written and poorly directed with no laughs. That's probably what disappoints me the most. I'm a zombie fan. I liked Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. There's no reason I should dislike this movie as much as I ended up disliking it.

3 / 10