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 

Child's Play (2019)

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I have been pretty skeptical of the Child’s Play remake from the beginning. However, I was still willing to go into this film with something of an open mind, even if I didn’t exactly have faith in it. Fortunately, for the most part, this movie actually proved me wrong. For one thing, I actually found Chucky (voiced in this remake by Mark Hamill) creepier than in the original. The reason is because this version of Chucky has more of an “if I can’t have you, no one can” attitude towards Andy. I actually like that this film makes the friendship between Andy and Chucky genuine. It’s also interesting that this A.I. version of Chucky acts much more naive and childlike. He genuinely does not understand that what he’s doing throughout most of this movie is wrong. The film is also legitimately well-acted, particularly from Aubrey Plaza as Karen and Gabriel Bateman as Andy. I actually kind of dug the relationship these two share as an onscreen mother and son. The kills are deliciously gruesome as well. I don’t really want to go into any more detail than that because that kind of ruins the fun of a slasher flick. I also have to appreciate the movie’s dark sense of humor as well. A lot of the jokes actually land for me. They don’t feel forced, so much as honestly natural. Something that gets a lot of criticism is Chucky’s puppet effects. This includes both the design and how he moves around. In all honesty, I didn’t have a problem with his movements at all. There felt like this uncanny valley for me, and I actually dug it. At first, his design was a little too off-putting. See, it worked for me when Chucky needed to be creepy. When he needed to look cute, it really didn’t work for me. I do have to admit that I wish some of the characters had a little bit more development to them (or in some cases, a legitimate introduction). But, these really aren’t huge problems for me, especially knowing this movie could have turned out far, far worse. As somebody who is a huge Chucky fan, I actually recommend this remake. I can’t guarantee every Chucky fan will like it, but i do think it’s worth seeing. 

8 / 10 

Jessica Jones - Season 3

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So, I have now finished the third and final season of Jessica Jones on Netflix. This time around, Jessica has to hunt down a serial killer, all while attempting to mend the relationships she had left broken following the events of the show's second season. I suppose I should start with the issues I had throughout the season, because they are honestly very minor problems. Some of the supporting characters act in ways I really don't feel they should act, as it doesn't completely feel like the characters we have come to know throughout the entirety of the series. On the other hand, the ending doesn't really feel like a series finale, so much as a season finale. I have no idea if this third season was written and filmed with the possibility of a fourth season in mind. While I don't particularly mind the show's slower pace, there actually were points where I wanted things to speed up a little bit. Okay, now I should talk about the things I liked. For starters, the actors all do a good job. Naturally, the standout to me is Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones. I like Gregory Sallinger as a villain. Because Sallinger doesn't have superhuman gifts, he brings a very different kind of menace to this show. He forces Jessica to use her intellect more than her brute strength. I also want to compliment the writers on how they handled the character of Trish Walker this season. They took her to a whole new place, and it made sense to me after how unlikable she was during the second season. Her character arc actually makes sense, and feels completely natural. Is this my absolute favorite when it comes the Marvel Netflix seasons? No, but I still think it is genuinely worthwhile. The third and final season of Jessica Jones has some stumbles, but it also has a lot working in its favor as well.

B+

Anna

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I didn’t know anything about this movie’s existence until I saw a trailer on Youtube a couple of months ago. Going into this movie, I had no idea what to expect. The movie stars relative newcomer Sasha Luss in the title role. Anna is a woman who was offered a chance to work as an assassin for the KGB. The first thing I have to draw attention to is that the plot kind of difficult for me to explain. Part of the reason is probably because the way the first half of the film is structured  makes it hard to follow. What I mean by this is that is the film will jump from one point in time to five years later to three years prior to this five-years-later-interval. One of the biggest problems I have with this is it actually makes it hard for me to pay attention, or even feel that invested. There is another possible reason I don’t find myself that invested in this film. I don’t find myself that interested in most of the characters, because it doesn’t really feel like the characters have that much to them, at least from my perspective. Yet, the actors do feel as though they are all putting effort in their performances.The action scenes are also pretty fluid. I don’t necessarily think Luc Besson’s direction lets this movie down, so much as his writing does. For example, the action scenes are genuinely pretty fluid, and well done. Overall, I don’t think this movie was inherently awful. I wasn’t expecting much of anything out of it either, so I couldn’t really be that disappointed. I think this is going to be one of those movies that will come and go from any memories, should it leave any impact at all.

4 / 10  

The Secret Life of Pets 2

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I don’t really think The Secret Life of Pets needed to have a sequel, but we have one anyway. Don’t get me wrong I actually did like the first film. It did what it needed to do. So, I didn’t really know what to expect going into the sequel. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t really like this film. Don’t get me wrong, it still has some of the strengths of the first movie, namely the voice acting. Everyone is clearly putting their all into their performances. The animation is pretty good (or better than the animation in Wonder Park at least). Occasionally, there’s a funny joke. But, there aren’t nearly as many in this as there are in the first film. OK, so that was pretty much everything I liked about this movie. Now, I should talk about the elements I really didn’t like. For starters, far more of the jokes miss than they do hit. But, there is one glaring flaw with this film that honestly prevents me from enjoying it. The film doesn’t really seem to have one main plot line. It feels more three separate movies have been sandwiched into one, and none of them actually feel like they even remotely blend. This isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen this year. Hell, it isn’t even one of the worst animated movies I’ve ever seen (I definitely liked it better than Wonder Park). This just felt like a sequel that didn’t need to exist, and never really justified having a reason to exist. 

5 / 10 

Hellboy

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In this reboot of the Hellboy franchise, the titular protagonist (played by David Harbour) battles against the villainous witch Nimue (played by Milla Jovovich) when she is resurrected and intends to plunge the world in darkness. I was actually pulling for this movie (even knowing that it meant that Hellboy III wasn’t likely to happen). This feels like a movie that really doesn’t know what it wants to be, and is constantly clashing with itself. The film seems to jump from action to horror to comedy without so much as a second thought. The problem is the constant tone jumping doesn’t work nearly as well as it should. Storylines feel like they are constantly introduced, only to be dropped. My guess is that they were being saved for the sequel that’s not going to happen. The visual effects are pretty hit and miss. The computer generated effects are pretty bad. But, the film’s practical effects are legitimately good, especially when it comes to the film’s creature makeup effects. Props should also go to the acting. David Harbour as Hellboy actually feels like he’s kind of the perfect choice to replace Ron Perlman. I also want to give some props to Sasha Lane as the character Alice. To my knowledge, this character is not from the comics, but I kind of liked her. And yet, for all of this movie’s problems, I still kind of dug it. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is clearly a mess. I apologize if it seems like my review for this film seems like it’s all over the place. But, that’s kind of the best way to sum up 2019’s Hellboy in a nutshell: all over the place. It’s strange because I did enjoy the film for what it was, and yet I don’t think I can bring myself to recommend this film.

6 / 10