Fantastic Four Review

One of the unfortunate, but realistic consequences of having great movies is that everyone else will try to copy that great movie because they want to find similar success. Because that's what we do in Hollywood. We try to replicate success. Being honest, you can't really blame Hollywood for having this mindset. It's a classic business strategy that's been used since the beginning of time. If you want to have success in the business world, you often have to figure out what has worked in the past so you can in turn have success. Unfortunately, this is often met with failure that does in fact frustrate consumers. Now let's stop beating around the bush here and get to specifics. Marvel Studios took a huge risk nearly 10 years ago now by deciding to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I don't need to recount that history, but needless to say that since Iron Man back in 2008 up to Ant-Man just recently, Marvel has taken in a grand total of $8.8 billion worldwide with just 12 movies. With 10 movies on the docket in the next four years alone, they're just getting started. So of course studios like Warner Bros., Sony, and Fox are going to do there best to cash in on this rich market of superhero movies with the properties they own the rights to. Who wouldn't want to try make $8.8 billion? Unfortunately, not everyone was going to succeed and thus we movie-goers have to suffer the consequences of these failures. Fox is the most recent studio to swing and miss with one of their properties as the latest Fantastic Four reboot is a complete disaster, so let's discuss why that's the case.

Fanastic Four on paper is the perfect opportunity for Fox to create a world that is similar to the Avengers. The Fantastic Four comic books are a well-liked series of comics for comic lovers. You have four young people who come across super powers that are quite fantastic. One of them has the ability to stretch like rubber. Another has the power of fire that he can use for a lot of things, one of them being flying. A third has the power of invisibility combined with the ability of using force fields. And the final one is a huge rock person who is extremely strong. There's a lot that could be done with this franchise. It has the potential to be extremely fun. But for some reason, no one can do it right. We had a straight to video version of the movie in the 90's that is apparently really bad. We have the fun, light-hearted version in 2005 where they spend 95 percent of the movie arguing about what to do with their powers instead of actually fighting. We have the extremely cheesy and hard-to-watch sequel to that 2005 film that came out two years later in 2007. And now we have a movie from this year where it is painfully obvious that there were a lot of strong personalities butting heads the entire time that resulted in everyone involved giving up halfway through, leaving us with a final product that can barely be labeled as a movie. I kid you not when I say this.

Let me describe to you my personal experience with this movie. We started off with a movie that I felt actually had some potential. We have a great cast that is headlined by the likes of Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, and Jamie Bell. Yes, there were some really dumb plot points and some really stupid side characters, but the overall direction of the movie seemed fine. But then it suffered from origin-story-itis to the tenth degree. I wanted these characters to get their powers early on and spend the majority of the movie fighting. I don't know the exact timing in the movie, but it felt like we were about an hour into the movie before they got their powers. Then there comes a point in the movie where things drastically change and the movie goes from really boring to absolute crap. We weren't too far into what I thought was towards the beginning of the second act when I was mentally checked out of the movie and I was wanting it to be over. So I did something that is always a bad sign for a movie. I got out my phone and checked the time. We were an hour and 15 minutes in. Suddenly I was dreading the idea that I might have to sit here for another hour, but I realized that I had no idea how long this movie was. Since I was one of only three people in my theater, I pulled out my phone again (bad sign -- I pulled out my phone twice) and looked at the run time. One hour and 40 minutes.Wait, what? Considering that 7-10 minutes of that run time is, that meant there was only 15 minutes left of my movie. Were we heading into the final act? Yup. And it was quite possibly the lamest and shortest final act I've ever seen in a superhero movie. Wow.

Needless to say, I sat there during the credits being absolutely dumbfounded. I had just watched a movie where the first act was over an hour, the second act was 15-20 minutes at best, and the final act couldn't have been any longer than 10 minutes, half of which being the resolution. Not only that, but everything about the final two acts was complete garbage. Plot points made no sense. Character arcs became extremely rushed. A villain is suddenly just the villain with like no explanation. Even worse is the fact that the villain the worst looking villain like in the history of ever. Then this seemingly unstoppable villain gets defeated by the fantastic four in like five minutes in the most unconvincing way. Then you have moments of CGI that were the lamest and weirdest CGI that I've seen in some time. There's only one conclusion that I could come up with that explains all of this in my head. They gave up. THEY. GAVE. UP. It's incredible. In a bad way. A very bad way. I don't even know what to compare this to. In all the movies I've watched, I don't think I've ever seen a movie where it was so obvious that everyone involved just threw in the towel. You don't even need to read about all of the production issues to come up with this. But when you do, it will all make sense. Director Josh Trank had this to say on his twitter on the night of release:

"A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would've received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though."

That says a lot about this movie. Then you go and read about all the chaos that happened during this production and that statement makes even more sense in context. Apparently Josh Trank had an idea of where he wanted to take the movie. But Fox didn't like his idea, so they butted heads. They wanted to fire him apparently, but instead just hired some people to re-write the script. During all this, it was reported that Josh Trank had been hired to direct one of the Star Wars anthology films, but was dropped after Lucasfilm and company did some investigating. I've heard lots of stories about how horrible Josh Trank was on set. Some say he came to set drunk on a regular basis. Others say that he butted heads with like everyone, actors included. I don't know what is true and what is fiction, but something wasn't right. I just read an article on EW.com about all of this. Check it out:

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/07/fantastic-four-josh-trank-tweet

So who's to blame for this mess? Should we put all the blame on Josh Trank? Was he so awful on set that he destroyed this picture to the point where Fox couldn't even save it with re-writes and re-shoots? Was it Fox that put him in a doomed-to-fail position where they were trying to make the next Avengers with this film when they should've just been focusing on giving us a good Fantastic Four movie? I don't know the answer to this. All I know is that it is really obvious as to which part of the movie is Josh Trank's movie and it is also really obvious as to when he lost all control. His part is pretty bad, but Fox's part is a whole lot worse. Bad plus worse equals the worst comic book movie ever made? Perhaps I'm not ready to give it that honor just yet, but I am willing to say that it's at least one of the worst and I will add to that the fact that I can't think of one right now that is a worse disaster than this movie simply because this just doesn't even feel like a movie. It's a joke. An unfinished product where everyone involved just gave up.

I really hope that everyone involved in this can make a recovery. Josh Trank is only 31 years old and he already has the movie Chronicle on his resume. I loved that movie. I hope he can put this disaster behind him, learn what he can from it, and continue to make more movies that are as good as Chronicle. I hope Fox can recover from this. I love what they have done with X-Men recently. I'm excited for X-Men: Apocalypse. I'm even intrigued by this Deadpool movie. What Fox needs to do is cut their losses with Fantastic Four. Don't go forward with that sequel. Let Marvel earn the rights back and continue with everything in the X-Men universe. Speaking of which, a lot of Marvel fanboys are happy with the idea of Marvel getting the rights back to Fantastic Four. Why? Are we really wanting yet another attempt at Fantastic Four after all previous attempts have failed? I say Marvel should get their rights back just for bragging rights, but then throw this franchise in the closet for good. Kill it. There are so many good comic book characters that deserve movies, why do we need to keep trying on this one over and over? Certainly not to blame for all of this are the actors that I mentioned earlier. Despite all the drama, this group does their best with what little is given to them. Casting them in these roles was perhaps the only thing that was done right with this project and because of that I'm not giving this my worse grade, but I'm close. My grade is for this disaster is a 2/10.

The Gift Review

The weekend has come and gone and in a unique turn of events, I was so busy that I had almost no time to keep up with my blog. For me personally, I considered this a good thing as I was out doing things with people all day instead of sitting at my computer or travelling by myself to a movie theater. However, for any of my readers that were really curious to know my opinions before they headed out to the theaters later in the weekend, I apologize that I wasn't able to be much help. I really hope you took my advice from Thursday and saw Shaun the Sheep Movie. If you were in the mood for a good summer blockbuster, I hope you went and saw Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation or Ant-Man instead of seeing the new Fantastic Four movie. My review on that will be coming soon. I'm also proud of you if you caught the vibe from critics and decided to check out The Gift, because that's the movie I actually saw on Thursday night instead of Fantastic Four. Holy cow, this was an excellent choice. I do realize that thrillers like this aren't for everyone. This movie was very intense throughout much of it. But if you're down for a thriller, this is a dang good one. I've been on a Hitchcock binge recently and thus I feel like I can comfortably say that this felt like a modern day Hitchcock film.

Don't let the title of this movie deceive you. If all you heard was that the movie was called The Gift, you might think this is some happy, feel-good Christian movie. Nope. Gifts are given. Those gifts aren't initially seen as harmful or provocative and thus other gifts are given in exchange, but this is not a happy movie. And it won't give you very many warm fuzzies. Instead it is about a really creepy guy who is made even creepier by the fact that he looks and acts so normal. Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall play this couple who just moved to California because of Jason Bateman's new job. This guy played by Joel Edgerton is an old high school acquaintance of Jason Bateman and all seems fine and normal at first. They have the typical "I haven't seen you in a long time, what are you up to?" conversation and they invite the guy over for dinner. Nothing bad, right? The problem is that this guy keeps showing up again, and again, and again. Every time he shows up he is extremely nice and usually gives a very thoughtful gift, but you quickly become very weary and things become more and more intense as they go on.

I mentioned the fact that this is very much like a classic Hitchcock thriller. Now that I've said that and you've gotten a description of the movie, you may seem like you have an idea of what's going to happen, especially if I mention that this creepy guy keeps showing up when Rebecca Hall is home alone. But I can almost promise you that what actually happens will be something that you won't see coming at all. At least that was the case with me. Just when I thought I had an idea where the movie is going, it took a huge turn in a direction I didn't expect. And then when I was able to get my bearings straight and get a feel of what actually was happening, it took another huge turn. And it kept doing this. Totally not the movie I expected going in, which was a good part of the reason why I liked the movie. I love being surprised over and over. Especially when the surprise is very rewarding. I'm obviously not going to tell you what this movie is actually about, but when I learned what it was, it was one of those movie moments where my jaw literally dropped. The themes in this movie are very strong and relevant. I could write a whole separate review about all of these themes as they are a majority of the reason why this movie is so great, but I will forgo that aspect of the review so that you can in turn be surprised and blown away when you see this movie.

After watching one of the many Hitchcock films that I've now seen in the last month, I also watched the documentary about the making of that film and in that I learned that Hitchcock had every scene and every shot in that film planned out so meticulously that when he actually got on set, he was sometimes bored because he had already gone through the whole movie in his head. I don't know anything about the making of The Gift, but it also has the feels like every shot is meticulously planned out. The movie itself isn't a fast-moving movie at all. In fact, it's very slow, but it feels like every shot and every scene is there for a specific reason and the movie slowly builds and builds as it goes on. Thus the suspense in the movie is built perfectly, just like in a lot of Hitchcock's films. The individual shots in the movie are very well done. In fact, a lot of the shots are done in a way that you feel like someone is there hiding in the shadows or hiding around a corner. This someone is of course Joel Edgerton's character. It really feels like he is in every scene of the movie watching Rebecca Hall as she goes about her everyday routine and is waiting for the perfect moment to unfold whatever his master plan is.

For all of this, I give a whole lot of kudos to Joel Edgerton. Not just because he was a dang good actor as the creepy individual, but also because this is his directorial debut. He also wrote the movie. So he literally is there in every scene of the movie. He's the writer and director who is the mastermind behind this whole thing telling everyone what to do and how to act and all of that jazz. I've always been impressed with the guy as an actor. He really caught my attention in the movie Warrior. Every time I have seen him since, he is absolutely fantastic. Even in films like last year's Exodus: Gods and Kings that weren't that good, Joel Edgerton did an amazing job. Any bad movie he's been in definitely hasn't been his fault. Knowing that this movie was his directorial debut caused me to have my eye on this for quite some time and I was hoping it would turn out to be good because I was a fan of the guy and I'm so glad it did. I look forward to this man's future and I'm excited to see what he has in store for us next.

Joel Edgerton isn't the only one that I was super impressed with when it came to this movie. Our other two leads were absolutely fantastic. Starting with Rebecca Hall, I honestly didn't know much about this woman. I had to look back on her IMDb page to figure out what she has done in the past and apparently I've seen plenty of movies that she's in, but I guess she's just never stood out enough that her name and face stuck in my head. It has now. She has several moments in this movie where I was like, dang girl! Major props. I loved her character. The other person that receives major props for this movie is Jason Bateman. Him I had heard of. Plenty of times before. The thing is, this guy is a comedian. He's not a serious, drama actor. Yet he is able to pull an incredible performance as this husband in a very serious, intense role. He was so good that I think Jason Bateman deserves an Oscar nomination for his performance. The fact that he's a comedian who doesn't do roles like this makes it even more impressive. I love it when someone can go cross-genre like this, get out of their comfort zone, and blow me out of the water. This is easily the best performance of Jason Bateman's career. In terms of Oscar-worthy performances, I would also say Joel Edgerton and Rebecca Hall are deserving as well. The acting is that good in this movie. But if I could only pick one, it would Jason Bateman.

I've really only scraped the tip of the iceberg with this movie. There's so much more I want to talk about with this movie, but I am holding back because I want all of you to have the same movie-going experience as I had. Recently I've been comparing movies from this year to movies that I loved last year. If I were to continue with that, The Gift would be the equivalent of Gone Girl. No, it's not nearly as bloody or graphic like Gone Girl. No, I didn't have my jaw dropped for the entire second half of the movie like I did with Gone Girl, but both movies are really intense thrillers, so if you liked Gone Girl, then you should really check this one out. And in continuing that comparison, one thing that The Gift has over Gone Girl is that the themes and messages are ones that won't leave you. In fact, the themes are so strong, that the movie overall ends up being more memorable than Gone Girl. Huge props to Joel Edgerton for crafting such a brilliant, suspenseful, smart, and relevant thriller that may be remembered for years to come. At least for yours truly. This once again continues an amazing year in film for 2015 as my grade for The Gift is another 9.5/10.

Shaun the Sheep Movie Review

If you know me well enough, you'll know that I have an extreme amount of respect for the stop-motion animation genre. Even in situations where the story of the movie isn't super fantastic, I still find myself enjoying the movie because of the amount of time and effort it takes to make even the smallest scene. Every tiny move requires a completely new shot and thus the final product is mind-blowing. Sadly it seems that the general population doesn't care about these movies. The highest grossing stop-motion animation movie in the U.S. is Chicken Run with just over $100 million. A few others have come close to that, but the majority of these movies make around $30 to $50 million at best. Compare that to a company like Pixar who consistently makes at least $200 million per movie in the U.S. alone. Even the lowest grossing movies from Dreamworks earn more than 90 percent of stop-motion animation movies. It's sad. It's unfair. It's frustrating. These movies deserve to be seen. They deserve type of money that Pixar gets. This is high quality animation. I was looking at projections for this week and Boxoffice.com predicts that Shaun the Sheep Movie will make less than $10 million in its opening weekend here. Ouch. That's an insult to this genre. At least it was a huge hit over in the U.K. earlier this year where the show originated from. But I am now begging you. Don't be like the rest of this country this weekend. Make the decision to support this movie. It deserves your money.

Now that I have that rant out of the way, let's talk about this movie. For all intents and purposes, Shaun the Sheep Movie is a movie that shouldn't work. It's based off the British TV series Shaun the Sheep, which consists of a whole bunch of 7-minute episodes. Stretching a 7-minute episode into an 85-minute long movie is quite the task by Aardman, especially because neither the TV show or the movie has any dialogue whatsoever. That's right. This movie has no dialogue. All we get is grunts, sighs, and mumbles from the humans and animal noises from the sheep, dogs, cows, ducks, etc. This shouldn't work. It should be a project that stays as a TV show and not a movie. But it does work. Oh does work. And not only does it work, but it's absolutely brilliant. The story is about a flock of sheep, a dog, and their farmer owner. The sheep are really tired of everyday farm life, so they conjure up a plan to get rid of the farmer. They put him to sleep, put him in a trailer, and send the trailer down the road into the city. But then they quickly realize that this was a bad plan and they want the farmer back, so they head into the city to rescue him.

This is quite the brilliant adventure. Right from the beginning, we just take off running and it's a blast the whole time. I was laughing hysterically the whole entire time. In fact, I don't think I've ever had this much fun with a stop-motion animation movie. It's a movie that your kids will have an absolute blast with, but it's also a movie where you will be laughing right along with them, so it works for adults as well. Humor isn't the only thing that this movie has going for it, though. For a movie based off of a bunch of 7-minute TV episodes, the story in this is rather moving and fairly deep. I'm not going to tell you what happens to the sheep once they get to the city, which is where most of our movie occurs, but there's some real tear-jerking moments in this. It's emotional and it's moving. And there's a few intense scenes in the last half of this movie. It's a very well-thought out and well-written movie. All this done without any dialogue, which makes it that much more impressive. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words? That definitely holds true here. Sometimes you don't need words to tell a story. In fact, sometimes the story is better without words. I'm trying to imagine what this movie would've been like if the people or the animals actually talked. It still may have been a good movie, but I don't think it would've been nearly as good.

Finally, I want to talk about what is probably the most important part of this movie. If you haven't gotten the vibe already, the feel of this movie is very much like a silent movie. Silent movies have no dialogue. Occasionally they will hold up a sign, write something down, or show some text on the screen, which is exactly the types of things that this movie does. But what really makes a silent movie the most effective is the music. Watching a movie with absolutely no sound is often pretty boring, but the music playing in the background is what propels the movie forward and that's the case here. They'll often do this clever thing where the music in the movie is actually being played or sung by a character, which is fun, especially when they bounce back and forth between that and the music being the soundtrack of the film only. But like I've just mentioned, this movie has a lot of different emotions and the way they express that is through the music. At one moment, you'll have the characters running around, doing something, and the music will be fast and up-tempo. Then a sad moment will happen. The farmer will feel lost or the sheep will be crying and along with that you'll have sad music to drive home that emotion. Occasionally you'll even get a song with words that will give you a sentence or two about the emotion a certain character is feeling that plays just like a line of dialogue in a silent movie. It works. The music is just perfect.

Overall, based on the reviews that the movie had as well as my personal track record with this genre of animation, I went into this movie expecting it to be a good movie. But even I was surprised at how  amazing this movie was. Like I said, this is a movie that shouldn't work. It's based off of a TV show that consists of 7-minute long episodes with no dialogue. That's hard to translate into an feature-length movie. It's for that very reason that movies based off of video games and board games often fail. But the fact that this doesn't fail is an impressive feat in and of itself. And the fact that it is an amazing movie that's both hilarious, emotional, and moving with an absolutely excellent story that flows perfectly makes it that much more impressive. I like Aardman Animation's films. Chicken Run is great. So is Wallace and Gromit. I consider Arthur Christmas a modern-day Christmas classic. I even enjoyed The Pirates! Band of Misfits. This is a great studio that consistently puts out great films. But I am going to boldly proclaim this as their best movie. It's close, but I will stand by that. Usually there's at least one animated movie that sneaks into my best movies of the year list and right now this movie is right up there with Inside Out as a solid candidate to make that list. As such, I will give Shaun the Sheep Movie the same grade I gave Inside Out: a 9/10.

Mr. Holmes Review

Whether it be in book, movie, or TV show form, I've always found a huge amount of enjoyment from the stories of Sherlock Holmes. In general, I've always enjoyed mystery stories, even from a very young age. The Boxcar Children and The Hardy Boys books were some of the first novels that I read when I was in Elementary School and I think I read like all of them. That love for mystery has never left me and I don't think I've come across a Sherlock Holmes movie, TV show, or book that I haven't enjoyed. Thus every time I hear of a new adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, I am intrigued and excited. I will admit that in terms of a movie, I expected the next Sherlock Holmes movie to be a third chapter in the Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes series, but I guess that was never meant to be? Sad day. Instead, though, our next movie version of Sherlock Holmes has come with Gandalf himself, Sir Ian McKellen, playing the title character. That really caught my attention because out of all the Sherlock Holmes adaptations that I've seen, I've personally never seen an old Sherlock. And a PG rating? This was definitely a much different take on Sherlock Holmes. You can say they took some big risks with this, but in this case those risks turned into very high rewards as this is one of the best Sherlock adaptations that I've seen.

In thinking about a comparison Mr. Holmes, the movie that immediately came to mind was Steven Spielberg's Hook. Very different movies of course, but both take a beloved character that is always seen as younger and look at him from an older age. Peter Pan is always seen as a young kid in Neverland. But what if he left Neverland and grew up? What would that be like? Sherlock Holmes isn't in a place where the actual rules of the land are such that one doesn't grow up, but he is such a classic character that for over 100 years he has stayed a as a middle-aged man, so he's pretty much in the same shoes as Peter Pan. As a general rule I think that we don't want our heroes to get old. We want them to stay around for the unforeseeable future. But what happens if our heroes do grow old? What will life be like for them? That's the issue that this movie discusses. Sherlock Holmes is 93 years old. It's been over 30 years since he's taken up a case and done his usual detective work. He's instead chosen to be a beekeeper at a remote farmhouse. Living at the same place as him is his housekeeper, Mrs. Munro, and her young son Roger. Mrs. Munro isn't a fan of Sherlock, but Roger adores him and because of Roger, Sherlock starts trying to remember the accurate details of his final case, specifically why that caused him to retire. When Watson wrote the story, he dramatized it to make it a happy story, but Sherlock is pretty sure it wasn't happy, but he can't remember why.

Movie ratings have taken on a stereotype today. PG movies are typically seen as movies for kids, PG-13 for teenagers, and R for adults. This goes against that. It's PG, but it's definitely not for kids. Content-wise, there's nothing in the movie that's inappropriate. It's just that they would find this extremely boring. Think of the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Homes movies and this movie is almost the exact opposite in terms of tone and feel. The pace in those movies were very fast. This is one is very slow. Those movies had a lot of drama and action. The second one was almost more of an action flick than a mystery-thriller. This one there is no action at all. Sure, there are some intense scenes in the final act, but even the flashbacks to Sherlock's final case aren't nearly as uptempo and exciting as your typical Sherlock Holmes story. Yes, there is your typical element of mystery. In fact, there's two mysteries going on. One in the past that Sherlock is trying to remember and another in the present that has to do with his bees. But this is far from your typical Sherlock movie. Instead of calling this a mystery or a thriller, I would categorize this is a character piece. Sherlock is not exactly a happy person. He thinks he's a lot stronger than he actually is. He can't remember details of his past. Life is very frustrating. It's really fascinating to watch the progression of his character throughout the film and it leaves you with so many themes that are very inspiring.

Ian McKellen is at his absolute best in this movie. A lot of people in history have had the pleasure of portraying the character of Sherlock and a lot of them have done a dang good job at it. But out of all the people who have portrayed this character, Ian McKellen actually gives one of the more convincing performances. If I were to rank all of the Sherlocks in terms of my personal favorites, Ian McKellen is now towards the top of that list, if not at the very top. Think of all the attributes that makes Sherlock great and now try to envision Sherlock as a 93-year-old man. That's exactly what Ian McKellen gives us with this performance. It's also a very emotional movie. There were several points that will bring you to tears, both sad tears and happy tears. I'm not going to give specifics as to why, but you really feel for this man. It's heartbreaking to watch him go through all that he does, especially with how attached I personally am to the character of Sherlock. It feels like a final send-off to one of the best characters in history. It's not, of course, because we have plenty more Sherlock coming in the future with season 4 of BBC's Sherlock being one example. But if this were a send-off, I would be pleased. Ian McKellen has received some early Oscar-buzz, which means very little at this point, but I would be happy to see him get this. Not only because the man has never won an Oscar, but also because his performance in this is very deserving of at least a nomination.

In the end, if you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes in whatever form, this is a movie that you absolutely need to find and see. No, it's not full of action and super intense drama like in previous versions of Sherlock, but the approach in this is just perfect. It's a great character piece that dives into one of the most classic characters in history. I'm going to look back at this movie as one of the best Sherlock Holmes movies ever made and I'm going to see Sir Ian McKellen as one of the best Sherlocks in history. So yes, if you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes, find this and see it. But even if you aren't the biggest Sherlock Holmes fan, this is still a movie that I would recommend you seeing because of the brilliant story and inspiring themes throughout. I actually watched this movie with my parents and the three of us spent quite a bit of time afterwards discussing all the themes of the movie and I love it when a movie does that. This is yet another excellent movie in a year that has provided us with quite the collection of cinematic gold. Creating my list of favorite movies from this year is going to be a very hard one when January rolls around, so I make no guarantees, but at this point I really have a hard time seeing me leave this one out. My grade for Mr. Holmes is a 9.5/10.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation Review

July of 2015 is the month of fifths. We got a fifth Terminator movie at the beginning of the month. Two days ago we were given the fifth Vacation movie. Now we have the fifth Mission: Impossible movie. That's quite the month. Speaking of Terminator, if you read my review on that you will know that before I wrote my review for that, I made sure to see all the previous Terminator movies. Knowing that Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation was coming out at the end of the month, I had a similar plan with the Mission: Impossible franchise. Unlike the Terminator franchise, I have actually seen at least most of the Mission: Impossible movies. I even wrote a review on this blog after I saw Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol back in early 2012 after its release in December 2011. It was the fourth review that I wrote for this blog. But it's been a while even since that movie and much longer for the other three. So I was going to do a refresher course on the franchise and the reward for that would be me informing you how this chapter fits in with the previous four. Sadly I failed that mission. Sorry. July 30th came a lot faster than I anticipated. As such, I had two choices. I could postpone seeing this movie until I watched the other four, much like I did with Terminator Genisys. Or I could just screw it and see this movie on opening night. I chose the second option. So unfortunately you won't be hearing right now how I liked this movie compared to the other Mission: Impossible movies, but you are getting this review a lot earlier, so that's good right?

Speaking of my Ghost Protocol review, I went back and read that just now and apparently I wasn't super enthralled with the movie when I first saw it. Interesting. I wonder how that would change on a re-watch because I had a blast with Rogue Nation. Either that means that Rogue Nation is a much better movie or I was in a weird mood when I saw Ghost Protocol. I'm thinking the latter, but we'll see. As you would expect with a Mission: Impossible movie, Tom Cruise has found himself in quite the conundrum. As he is out moseying around the world, he sees some evil dude do a very evil thing and then a bunch of that evil dude's cohorts start beating the living tar out of him and he only escapes because of one of my new favorite females. Then he decides he needs to hunt this evil dude down and so he calls his buddy Hawkeye, I mean Jeremy Renner (who was in Ghost Protocol, which was released before The Avengers), for some help but then he learns that the CIA has shut down his little organization and are out to kill him, so he can only get help from his buddies if they agree to put their lives on the line and help him. You know, typical day in the life of Tom Cruise. I could be more specific with the details and terminology here, but sometimes I like to give as little plot as possible in my reviews, thus preserving the experience for my readers who haven't seen the movie. But you get the point. Basically Tom Cruise is on yet another mission that seems, dare I say... impossible?

The thing that made this movie so great is that it was a huge, wild ride from beginning to end. Often an action movie will spend a little time setting the stage for our adventure and thus we have to wait a bit before we get to the action. That's definitely not the case here. This is like a horse race. Right out of the gate the movie just starts sprinting and it doesn't let up until it crosses the finish line. Brainless action movie? Heck to the no. This is a very smart movie with a fairly intricate plot and amazing characters. Every corner of the movie there is a new twist and turn that keeps you on your toes the whole time. You don't know what's going to happen next. You don't know what crazy stunt Tom Cruise is going to have to pull off next. You don't even know the loyalty of all the characters. Yes, you know that somehow Tom Cruise is going to pull it off, but this is definitely not a predictable movie as you have no idea how he's going to get to that point. During some parts of the movie you hear the conversations of the team as they discuss the plan. Those moments put a big smile on your face as you realize what's going to happen next. Other times the team plans off-screen and we as an audience have no idea what they have up their sleeve. Every single time that happened I had an even bigger smile because of how genius the plan was.

You heard me say team at the end of that last sentence. Without giving anything away, this mission becomes more than just Tom Cruise doing awesome stunts and coming up with ideas on his own. All four of our main protagonists get equal time to shine in this movie, which I really liked. They might not be the brilliant-minded, action star that Tom Cruise is in this movie, but they're all good in their own individual ways. First, I need to talk about Tom Cruise. If you are one of those people that still boycott this man's movies and hate on him because of his personal life, just stop already. I won't go on this rant again, but the man is an absolute genius on the screen. He's getting old now, but he sure as heck doesn't act like it. He's still acting and doing crazy stunts like he's forever in his 20's. The fact that he does his own stunts gives him even more kudos in my book. I don't expect this out of actors. I have zero problem with the inclusion of stunt doubles. But when you can do your own stunts, I give you major props. And there's some crazy things that happen in this movie that make me want to go watch a documentary on the making of this movie to see exactly what Tom Cruise put himself through. The man is a genius, a boss, and a super good actor. Stop being a hater already and accept this man's awesomeness.

The other three now. We have a great trio of support for Tom Cruise in Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames. First off, Jeremy Renner is awesome and the casting people for Ghost Protocol should really give themselves a gold star for getting this guy on board before he exploded on the scene as Hawkeye. Yes it's true that he was Hawkeye in the first Thor, which was released before Ghost Protocol. But it wasn't until The Avengers where he really caught people's eyes, mine included. Now he's in everything and is loved by everyone. Rogue Nation definitely takes advantage of this and ups his role in a big way. Smart move. Simon Pegg does a great job of being the comic relief, especially because he is able to do so in a way that doesn't disrupt the flow of the movie as this movie is very intense at times. He's also able to be equally as good at being serious and I really appreciated that versatility in his performance. Finally, as far as our main group of protagonists goes, we have Ving Rhames, who is the guy you don't want to meet in a dark alley, if you know what I mean. This guy has been in all five Mission: Impossible movies, so huge fans of the franchise will be happy to know that his role in this is pretty big, which wasn't the case in Ghost Protocol if I'm remembering correctly.

I'm now done talking about our main group of protagonists, but I'm not through with talking about these actors in this movie. Alec Baldwin is new to the franchise in this movie and I don't want to say much about his character, so I will just tell you that I really enjoyed him. This was one of the better Alec Baldwin roles. Who I do want to spend time on is the girl who I said in the second paragraph was one of my new favorite females. Her name is Rebecca Ferguson and there's a good chance you've never heard of her because the only notable thing she's done before this was last year's Dwayne Johnson Hercules movie. But holy cow, what a find. She might be the best part of this movie, which is saying a lot because there are a lot of great characters in this movie. I don't want to say too much about what she does because she is a fairly mysterious girl, but she is on par with Tom Cruise in the movie in terms of both intelligence and action. Half of the time she is actually outsmarting and out-maneuvering him and it works. I hope this movie ends up being a stepping stone for more big roles, because I really want to see more of this girl in the future. This also makes for quite the strong year for female action stars.

If there's one flaw that I find in this movie, it's the actual master-mind behind all of this villainy. While the scheme itself was brilliant, as a main villain I didn't find him very convincing. When he finally got his screen-time, I didn't buy the fact that he was the one to come up with all of this. But that's really the only issue I had with this movie and that's quite the minor issue when compared to the awesomeness that was the rest of this movie. Best action movie of the summer, like the recent TV spots have been saying? Well, no. I'd still give that title to Mad Max: Fury Road. But this ain't too far behind that. If you don't like action movies, then this isn't for you of course. But if you love action movies, which will probably be the case for most of the people reading this review, then you need to make movie a high priority because it's an absolute blast from beginning to end. I really wish I could give you my ranking for this movie in compared to the other Mission: Impossible movies. Sorry again for that. But I don't imagine things getting much better than this. It's everything you would expect from a movie called Mission: Impossible and perhaps even more. I'm going to give this movie a very strong 9/10. I even considered going a bit higher with this, but that's a strong grade for me as is, so I feel comfortable with it.

Love & Mercy Review

Going to see Love & Mercy the other day was quite the experience. While I do enjoy seeing big blockbusters, I'm often searching for any chance I can get to see a smaller, lesser-known film in theaters. Love & Mercy is one of those festival movies that found its way into theaters. For some reason, I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I had seen no trailers, no advertising, and barely any posters for the movie. I just knew it was a smaller movie that had gotten really good reviews. That was it. That was good enough for me, though. So I went in, hoping to enjoy it and actually was a few minutes late, so I missed the very beginning. When I walked in, there was a man having a really awkward conversation with a car saleswoman inside an older car. Ok, cool. This movie was set 30 or so years ago, I thought to myself. Man gets out of car after saying he wants to buy it. Then man gets introduced as Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. Wait what? Am I here seeing a biopic of the freaking Beach Boys? How did I not know that this existed? Yup, that was my movie-going experience. I went and saw a Brian Wilson biopic without realizing it even existed. That was great. And in terms of biopics, this was a pretty darn good one. I personally enjoyed it more than last year's Oscar-nominated biopics The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything.

In addition to having no idea that I was going to see a Brian Wilson biopic, the other thing that made this a really good experience for me personally was that I knew pretty much nothing about the personal lives of any of the Beach Boys. All I knew is that they wrote some pretty darn good songs like "Good Vibrations," "Barbara Ann," and "Fun, Fun, Fun." So everything that happened in the movie was a total surprise. If you are a huge Beach Boys fan and you know every detail about their personal lives, I'm sure this will still be a great experience for you as I have enjoyed plenty of biopics where I knew how it was going to end. But knowing nothing made for quite the experience because apparently Brian Wilson had quite the crazy life and thus this was quite the intense and emotional movie. The movie jumps between two separate timelines. One timeline is back in the 60's during the Beach Boys' heyday. The other is during the 80's where Brian Wilson was going through quite the ordeal. I don't know how much of this ordeal I want to share, but I think it's safe to say that in the 60's his mental health was deteriorating quite a bit and some awful things happen to him in the later story line because of that.

One thing I found fascinating about this movie was that duel story line. The logical way to make a biopic is to start at the beginning of your story and move towards the end. That's what happens most of the time and I'm just fine with that. But bonus points go out when a movie can successfully stray away from this traditional narrative in a way that works. That's the case here. We eventually get the story of Brian's whole life. In addition to the two main story lines, we are told of what happened in his life during his childhood as well as what happens in between our two main story lines. But having it all come as a puzzle was really interesting. It also built up the story and the suspense very well. We see how Brian is acting later in life and we slowly get more and more background as to how he got to this point. Both story lines were also really interesting to follow in their own way. It could've worked very well as two separate movies, a movie about his life in the 60's and a movie about his life in the 80's. Instead it's like we watched the movie and its sequel at the exact same time. How often do you get that experience?

Major props go out to every actor involved in this movie. I first want to mention this blonde female actor in the movie before I mention the two Brians. Like I said, I knew almost nothing going into this film. I didn't even know who it starred. The later story line centered around a complicated love story that followed the female part of that more than Brian. For the life of me I couldn't figure out who this actress was, but I swear I knew her from something and since I was really enjoying the heck out of her performance, I wanted to know who it was and I wasn't about to pull out my cell phone in the theater. That's not cool. Sure enough, the credits eventually rolled around and holy Effie Trinket it was Elizabeth Banks as this girl. Wow! I mean, I've always loved Elizabeth Banks, especially in her Hunger Games role, so I'm not surprised that she was able to pull this off, but I was still impressed as this was the best I've ever seen her. I'd be in total support of her get recognized by the award ceremonies at the end of this year.

Next I want to discuss both of our Brians. Younger Brian is played by Paul Dano and older Brian is played by John Cusack. Both of these guys are the bomb in this. I think it's especially difficult to portray a character who is going through mental issues and in this case its especially difficult because the two actors have to be pretty in sync with each other as the one eventually progresses to being the other and that transition I feel is done rather well. Both of these actors definitely felt like the same character. Now John Cusack has been around for a while and he's usually great in everything he does, even if the movie itself isn't the best (2012 is an example of that). So it's no surprise that he is great in this. Props to the guy for some good consistency throughout his career. Paul Dano on the other hand is someone who's really impressed me as of late and I think he's one to keep your eye on. No, he's not new to the acting business. But he's pulled off some dang good performances as of late. In Prisoners he played our mostly mute, mysterious victim. I believe he was one of the scumbag slave owners in 12 Years a Slave. Now this where he plays a Brian that is slowly deteriorating mentally while achieving major success with the Beach Boys. All super impressive.

Also, we have Paul Giamatti in the movie. I don't want to say much about who he plays and what he does, but holy freaking cow. If I were to pick only one person to award, it might be him. But really, they are all worth it. Too bad this movie came out at the wrong time of year to be considered a serious contender. Had this been a fall or winter release later this year, I think it would be turning more heads in the awards race. I mean, if we give Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Keira Knightley, and Felicity Jones Oscar nominations (and a win for Redmayne) for roles in their respective biopics last year, then someone in this should get a nomination, whether it be Cusack, Dano, Giamatti, or Banks because I walked out of this movie as impressed or more impressed with their performances than with the previously mentioned performances (all of which I enjoyed for the record). But alas, this movie will probably be forgotten come nomination time in January. What a sad, messed up system we have where you need to be released later in the year for the Academy to remember you existed. Because let's be honest, situations like The Grand Budapest Hotel from last year are more of an anomaly.

Overall, if you like the Beach Boys, then this is a movie that you need to check out. I watched the trailer after seeing this movie (not completely intentional -- no need to tell that story here, though) and they have this tagline that says something to the effect of you won't see the Beach Boys' music the same after watching this and I think that is true. Knowing Brian Wilson's story will give you a different perspective on this great band. Even if you don't call yourself a Beach Boys fan, but you like biopics or you just like watching good movies in general, then this is also a movie that you need to see because it's one of the better biopics that I've seen. It's also a movie where the narrative is very well crafted and all the performances by the cast are just excellent. Huge props especially go out to Elizabeth Banks, John Cusack, Paul Dano, and Paul Giamatti for really making this work. This is an intense and emotional ride that deserves your attention. I'm awarding Love & Mercy a 9/10.

Pixels Review

At the beginning of this year, as I was preparing to make my annual yearly movie preview I stumbled across a movie that sounded genius. 1980's video game characters are sent to attack the earth and the military turns to some video game nerds to save the day. That immediately put a huge smile on my face and I included that in the good movies section. Perfectly logical? Absolutely not. But it sounded like a whole lot of fun. Perfect Summer movie. Then the trailer was released. We got Pac-Man, we got Donkey Kong, we got Centipede, we got Tetris. All sorts of classic games that everyone loves. Right? Advertising was pretty flawless in my opinion. It looked just as fun as the premise sounded and I was stoked. However, there was a huge number of people that saw Adam Sandler and Kevin James in the trailer and immediately shut off their brains, Rantings began of how both of those two are the worst actors on planet Earth and have never made a good movie in their entire careers and never will. NO!!! Oh the ignorance and stupidity. I immediately began defending both of those two and this movie that looked genius. Pretty soon this movie and me had developed a special connection because I was one of the few that loved the idea and defended its actors. Well, you know that feeling when someone who you considered your best friend does something completely despicable, thus stabbing you in the back, leaving you hurt and broken for years? Yeah that's almost how I feel right now. After seeing Pixels, I totally regret speaking one word in the movie's defense and now I'm going to take out my bitter revenge in this review. Prepare yourselves.

So what of this supposedly genius plot of 1980's video game characters attacking the world with super genius video game nerds saving the day? Yeah, let's back up a bit. It's 1982. Young versions of Adam Sandler and Kevin James steal this girl's huge jar of lemonade money and take it to the arcade with them. Adam Sandler instantly becomes an expert at every game imaginable and that of course leads him to entering the first annual arcade game championship where these boys will be filmed and that film will be sent by NASA into space as a treaty to the alien planets out there. Wait, what? Yeah. That's just said in passing as if its a completely logical plot device that everyone in the theaters is going to buy. So instead of being fun and silly, it's decided to go with the completely horrible and stupid route. Oh but we're not done. Advance 30 years into the future. Kevin James is the President of the United States. Yes, you read that right. Kevin James is the President of the United States. And he is the biggest buffoon on planet Earth who doesn't even know how to read well. How was he elected? Would anyone on Earth decide to vote for this character? Oh yes, comedy. That's what this. It's supposed to be funny. Got it. So anywho, these aliens decide that they are going to wage war by sending these video game characters to Earth and apparently the only people on planet Earth who have played a video game in their lives are these three doofuses played by Adam Sandler, Josh Gad, and Peter Dinklage. Yet all they do is point the gun and shoot. And not even trailed military personnel can aim a freaking light gun at the centipedes.

That's our movie guys. Not this fun, silly adventure where you turn off your brain and enjoy. It was this grueling, painful event stuffed with some of the worst writing I've seen on film this year. This writing is so bad that it rivals such movies like Jupiter Ascending or Strange Magic from the beginning of the year. Haven't seen those? Good. Forget about them. The acting here isn't even the problem. All these bitter Adam Sandler trolls on the internet who say the man has never made a good movie and never will are probably now laughing at me and others who defended this. But do you know what, the man HAS made plenty of good movies. He CAN act when he wants to. Happy Gilmore? The Waterboy? 50 First Dates? The Longest Yard? Click? Bedtime Stories? Hotel Transylvania? These are all good movies by Adam Sandler, several of which he pulled off a great acting performance. I even heard that he was pretty good in last year's Men, Women & Children even though the movie itself was a pile of garbage. Yes, there are plenty of times where he just seems like he doesn't care and is there for the paycheck. This actually isn't one of them. He's fine in the movie. He tries to make it fun. It's not his fault the writing was so freaking bad that not even a great actor could redeem the movie.

Same thing goes for Kevin James. For anyone who says he's never done any good, I'd quickly remind you of this TV show called The King of Queens. That was a fantastic late 90's/early 2000's sitcom. Even if you didn't like him in that, pretty much everyone I've talked to has enjoyed the movie called Hitch, which is one of my personal favorite rom-coms. Even movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Zookeeper, and Here Comes the Boom played very well for the younger audience that it was intended for. Yes, I called his character a buffoon earlier in my review, but that's not Kevin James' fault. He was just written is an unlikable buffoon. Let's continue. Josh Gad. The man is pretty much a legend in a little-known animated movie called Frozen. The voice of Olaf? I was laughing non-stop the whole movie at Olaf's brilliant one-liners. How is it that nothing that comes out of Josh Gad's mouth is even remotely funny in Pixels? Was Frozen just a one-hit wonder for him? Did he forget how to make people laugh? I don't believe that. He was trying in this movie, but the writing was so bad that it was impossible for him to be funny. Peter Dinklage. That little guy is a genius. I personally know him as Miles Finch from Elf. You know, the character that Will Ferrell's Buddy the Elf refers to as a "South Pole elf" or an "angry elf"? Many of you will know him for Game of Thrones. He plays Tyrion Lannister in that. The guy knows how to act. But in Pixels he is just awful. His fault? Nope.

Getting my vibe here? This is one of those films where I could start at the beginning and go scene by scene explaining how awful things were in this movie and I'd still probably miss things. I'll spare you the pain of even attempting that, but just know that this was a painful experience for me. I went to the movie to have fun. I was hoping that I was going to laugh. There were about five minutes in the movie where I had a little bit of fun. That was when they were chasing Pac-Man around New York City. There were a few jokes a I laughed at. Josh Gad sits in Kevin James' Presidential chair. Immediately Kevin James tells him to get out and Josh Gad immediately jumps right back up, making some sort of witty comment. For some reason I found that funny. I chuckled a bit. I don't know if that was supposed to be funny, but it was. But they were trying to make me laugh the whole movie and 99 percent of the time it just didn't work. I wanted to laugh. I wasn't just being a grinch. I love laughing. But this wasn't a funny and it was painful to see them try over and over and over and over. Is this a time where I blame the director? Possibly. Chris Columbus is that man. He has directed such movies like Mrs. Doubtfire, Bicentennial Man, the first two Home Alone movies, and the first two Harry Potter movies. He was a writer for The Goonies and Gremlims. So the man is a talented man. Don't know what went wrong here.

I could go on. I could talk about some really awkward things that happened at the end of the movie. I could dive into one of the worst played romances in recent memory. But I'll stop here because I think you get my point. Pixels just doesn't work. If you saw it already, I'm sorry I couldn't warn you earlier. I decided to give my attention to Southpaw and Paper Towns first. If you haven't seen it yet, just don't. If you are part of the crowd who jokes with me that you end up liking every movie that I hate, then look at some other reviews. The movie is at 5.1 on IMDb. It's at 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. Trustworthy YouTube reviewers like Chris Stuckmann and Jeremy Jahns both trashed this movie. Stuckmann even gave this movie a big, fat "F." No one is enjoying this movie, so it's not just me. I saw it because that's what I do. I watch movies and write about them. Sometimes I seek out the bad movies so that I can have fun writing bad reviews. If you are a casual movie-goer, just skip this one. At the very least, wait till it comes to Red Box, Netflix, or a dollar theater where you don't have to spend much money and you can turn it off or walk out without much worry when you realize that all of us were right all along. As a lover of the classic arcade video games that this movie showcased, I was especially frustrated at such a wasted opportunity. My grade for Pixels is a 3/10 and I only go so high because I can tell the actors were trying to make this fun and there were a few brief moments where I had a bit of fun. But mostly it's just crap.