High School Musical

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I already know you're asking yourself why I'm talking about High School Musical. Well, I watched it recently (for the first time since maybe 2007). Yes, I know this isn't some sort of masterpiece, nor would I expect it to be. It's a cheesy TV movie musical made for the Disney Channel. I don't really know how I'm going to be able to actually review this movie. The music is OK. Some of the songs are decently catchy (namely Stick to the Status Quo for me). A lot of the film's plot actually doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The closest I can come to describing this film's plot is that it's basically a watered-down version of Grease. It was incredibly easy to pick apart. One thing I never realized as a kid was the fact that pretty much everybody in this film is an asshole. 99% of the characters are just awful people that do mean, spiteful things to one another. Yet, I can't hate the movie for that. No. I don't even remotely know why. It doesn't really make any sense to me. Surprisingly, this isn't a movie that's given me a ton to say. High School Musical is just a cheesy Disney Channel Original Movie that shows up and does its thing. It's not really geared towards a man in his mid-20s. It's something of a guilty pleasure for me, and that's all I really needed it to be. I'm not going to assign this movie a rating simply because I don't really feel like I need to. 

The Fast and the Furious

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So, I have a decided on a whim to go back and review the first six Fast and the Furious movies. Why? Because I felt like it. Looking back at 2001's The Fast and the Furious, it seems almost quaint. It relatively small scale compared to some of the later films in the franchise. No, this isn't the most groundbreaking or original plot. Think Point Break with cars. The acting isn't spectacular. I think most of the cast finds their footing later on in the franchise (in particular Michelle Rodriguez and Paul Walker). There are two people in this film I think give solid performances. Vin Diesel has practically made a career out of playing anti-heroes (this movie came out one year after Pitch Black). The man does have a pretty limited acting range, but Dom Toretto doesn't really force Diesel to stretch. The character actually plays to his strengths. A similar case can also be made for Ted Levine, who plays the lieutenant for Paul Walker's undercover cop. Levine might be on autopilot here, but cops and dirt-bags are roles he really excels at. The characters aren't very deep, but I like them well enoughThe special effects are pretty bad, mostly because I think they just haven't stood the test of time. If I'm being honest, I didn't actually see this movie in its entirety until I was in middle school, so I can't really say that I know how they looked in 2001. There is some sense of nostalgia for me, but nothing huge. I've always enjoyed this film on some level, even if I have never considered it to be among my favorites. There are some rough patches, and I think this film shows a lot of initial growing pains that the franchise would eventually learn from. If I were to take The Fast and the Furious on its own, I wouldn't consider this a film that would launch one of the biggest action franchises of the 21st century. 

7 / 10 

Angel Has Fallen

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Mike Banning (played by Gerard Butler) finds himself framed for the attempted assassination of President Alan Trumball (played by Morgan Freeman). Banning must go on the run to clear his name. Going into this film, I wasn’t entirely sure what I should expect. I really liked Olympus Has Fallen and didn’t care for London Has Fallen too much. Having seen the film, I can say I genuinely enjoyed this movie. I didn’t like it as much as Olympus, but really preferred it over London. The acting is good enough. It isn’t anything stellar, but that’s not really why I would watch a movie like this. The action is pretty fun to watch. I especially love the chemistry and banter between Gerard Butler and Nick Nolte (playing Banning’s father). I also kind of appreciate that this film does a little more to make Banning’s wife more of a character. Granted, the character development isn’t particularly deep. There is some development there, but it isn’t much. I’m not saying this is something that bothered me. After all, this is the third movie in a franchise. There are a couple of twists thrown into the movie in terms who the villains are, and I’m just going to say the they are pretty obvious right from the get go. I kind of wish there was a little more of Nick Nolte in the movie. I also kind of feel that Jada Pinkett Smith was under-used as well. Overall, I enjoyed Angel Has Fallen quite a bit. This isn’t a great movie. It’s perfectly fun junk food. That’s what I was expecting out of it, and that’s pretty much what I got. I can’t really complain too much about that. 

6 / 10 

Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus

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This is actually a movie I didn't even know was going to be a thing until I saw it was on Netflix not too long ago. Zim had vanished for some time, leaving his arch nemesis Dib to become a shell of his former self, merely waiting for Zim's return. I should start this by saying that I'm really only a casual Invader Zim fan. I've seen some episodes of the show here and there, but I know the gist. I don't think you need to be the biggest Invader Zim fan to get something out of this movie, nor would I say you necessarily need to have seen the show. There are points in the film where they reference the show's backstory. However, I do think that even the most basic knowledge genuinely helps. I really dug this movie. It's pretty well-animated. The humor works really well. Most of the jokes really do land. The movie also keeps up a pretty good pace. Sometimes, I wonder if the pace might be a touch too fast. However, this never feels like a detriment to the film, so much as my own personal observation and nitpick in regards to this film. I don't really think there's too much more for me to say. Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus is a lean 70 minutes. It's short and sweet, but never overstays it's welcome. I recommend this film to fans of the Invader Zim series, hardcore and casual fans alike.

7 / 10 

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

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Hattie Shaw (played by Vanessa Kirby) is framed as a traitor by an enhanced supervillain called Brixton (played Idris Elba) after her team is massacred, forcing her to flee with a virus that poses a threat to the entire world. As a result, Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw (Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprising their roles from the main Fast and the Furious franchise) are brought in and forced to work together to bring Brixton down. OK, this movie clearly doesn’t much of an actual plot. It feels more like it’s an excuse to have a bunch of action sequences as well as have Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham say a bunch of one-liners. I didn’t go into this movie expecting high art. The bigger and dumber the movies in this franchise get, the more I honestly tend to enjoy them. Some of the writing is incredibly cheesy. But, I can’t really be that hard on the writing. After all, this is coming from someone who loves movies like Commando, Con Air, Face/Off, and Independence Day. I mean, this is a movie where Idris Elba gets to say the line “I’m black Superman.”It’s hard for me to say much more. This feels like it’s a movie in the loosest sense. It’s kind of good in all of the right ways, and it’s kind of bad in all of the right ways. If you are a fan of this franchise, then I really do recommend this film. If you’re not a fan, then this might just be the one I actually recommend seeing the most. I don’t want to guarantee anything, but it feels more like a buddy cop spy movie than anything else.   

7 / 10 

Girls with Balls

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So, not too long ago, I came across a movie on Netflix called Girls with Balls. The film is about a volleyball team that finds themselves being hunted for sport by a bunch of rednecks when their van breaks down. Based on that title and premise, I was legitimately intrigued. Let’s just say that the movie was something of an underwhelming experience for me. For a horror comedy, the horror didn’t work that well, and the comedy never really landed for me. I didn’t really find any of the characters all that interesting. It felt like the development was paper-thin. This is something of a catch-22 for me. There have been a lot of movies like this where I have been fairly lenient on characters not having much to them. I feel like part of my issue is that there really isn’t anyone here that I particularly like. This film is technically a foreign film. It’s dubbed into English. At first, this was something that really distracted me, mostly because I could just tell. Some of the character motivations feel like they just come out of nowhere, or that they could have been handled better. In the end, it feels like Girls with Balls was just a movie that didn’t seem like it really knew what it wanted to be. I would still say give it a chance, if only because your experience with a film like this may legitimately differ from my own. Even if I personally wasn’t a fan, I could actually see how someone else could be. 

3 / 10 

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

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Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the sequel to 2014’s Godzilla. This time around, Godzilla has fight King Ghidora for dominance over all monsters. Now, when the movie is about Godzilla fighting it out with other monsters, it is genuinely entertaining. The human cast is composed of solid actors. The cast includes the likes of Millie Bobby Brown, Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Ken Watanabe, Bradley Whitford, and Charles Dance. But, everything else about the movie doesn’t quite work that well for me. The pacing just feels off. It isn’t really easy for me to explain why. A lot of it just doesn’t quite come together. But, the movie’s biggest problem is the characters. They are played by good actors giving good performances. The problem is: most of these characters just aren’t written very well. There isn’t really anything about any of them that honestly stands out. Their motivations don’t feel that well defined, almost as though the motivations for most of these characters is designed to fit a given scene, so they are incredibly difficult to define. If it seems as though I’m being particularly harsh, it’s because this is one of the movies I was the most excited for this year. The final product is easily in the running for my biggest disappointment of the year. It has good elements (namely the actors, effects, and action). But, the characters, writing, and pacing really let the movie down for me in the end. 

4 / 10