A Most Wanted Man Review

Towards the beginning of this year, the Hollywood Universe lost one of their greatest with the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Having just seen him knock it out of the park as Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, this news devastated me. It made it sad when I learned it was of a mixed drug intoxication. But I didn't let that skew my opinion of him. First off, we all have our own personal demons and I'm certainly not one to judge. But second, I consider myself good at separating personal life from professional life and I really will miss Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yes, he still has the two Mockingjay movies coming out, which I'm glad he was able to finish, but I wasn't about to miss out on his final performance as a lead actor with A Most Wanted Man. While I thoroughly enjoyed Hoffman's performance in this, I was disappointed in the movie as a whole because I just couldn't get into it.

A Most Wanted Man apparently is a book by John le Carre. I'm sure avid book fans will feel like stoning me after this next statement, but I really have no idea who that man is. The fact that this movie was even based on a book was something that managed to slip me until after the movie was over. I'm not going to speak for the book because I know nothing about it, but the movie itself does have an interesting premise. It's set post-9/11 in Hamburg, Germany where security is super high in terms of the war on terror. In comes this man to the Islamic community that catches the attention of both Germany and the US and they have to make the decision as to whether or not this man is a terrorist threat or not, because you know, the Islamic religion is a fantastic, peaceful religion. It's the extremists that give the rest of them a bad name.

So the premise of "is this man a threat or is he a victim" is an interesting one. The problem is the movie is so darn slow that it was hard for me to keep focused. Now yes, there are lots and lots of slow movies that are really good. In fact, sometimes it's the slow movies that are the best movies as opposed to the fast movies. But this was not one of them. This was the bad type of slow where I was completely unable to latch onto the story or the characters at all. About halfway through the movie, I heard this guy behind me in the theater snoring and it was at that point where I knew that I wasn't the only one having a hard time. But no, in case you are asking, lack of sleep on my part wasn't the issue here. I was full of energy going into this. By the end of the movie, a certain event happened and I knew that I was supposed to be feeling a certain unnamed emotion because of that event, but that emotion wasn't experienced. Instead, the emotion of I'm finally free from this theater was the one I experienced. Because, no, I don't leave the movie theater. I spent my hard-earned cash and I'm at least sticking it out to the end in hopes that good things happen.

Now this movie wasn't a complete waste of my time. I went into the movie to see Philip Seymour Hoffman one more time in a leading role and I was not disappointed in that. There were times where the story line was lost to me, but I knew that whatever Hoffman was doing and for whatever reason, he was doing a great job and I was enjoying his performance. He was especially great at the very end of the movie. The previously mentioned unnamed emotion that I was supposed to be experiencing was one that he was actually experiencing and I said to myself that this man was a fantastic actor. As a lead role, he went out with a bang and after watching this performance I was even more saddened at the fact that he is now gone. Like I said earlier in my review, Hollywood lost one of the greatest this year. He will be missed. Rest in peace Phillip.

If you've seen this movie and enjoyed it or you are a fan of John le Carre's work, this is the point where you will be going crazy right now. In fact, you are probably yelling at your screen that if I had only put more effort into following the details of what was going on, I would love the movie. And perhaps you are right. In some time during my life, I am willing to give this movie another chance. And this sparks another interesting point of discussion. I sometimes change my mind. In fact I do it a lot. Oftentimes each viewing of a movie gives me different insight to the movie, whether good or bad, and thus changes my opinion of the movie. So yes, if you dive into the archives of my reviews and read an older review, there is a chance that what I said during that review does not reflect what I currently feel right now. The Great Gatsby is a perfect example. If you go read my review right now, you'll think that my opinion of the movie is only so-so because that's how I reviewed it at first. But in fact, after writing that review the movie stuck with me and upon further viewings, my opinion changed drastically and now it is one of my favorite movies from the last few years. 

The point of all this is that I'm willing to give this movie a second chance. But not now. I'm not going to spend a full ticket price on it again because if further viewings cement my opinion, that will have been a waste of my time and money, especially since there is always so many movies I want to see. The fact of the matter is that A Most Wanted Man did have great acting, a great score and a great premise, but the movie itself was slow and boring to the point where I wasn't engaged or interested at all. I just wanted the movie to end. I hope my opinion of it changes, but for now I will give the movie a 6/10.

Get On Up Review

James Brown, the godfather of soul. Being perfectly honest, I'm actually not too familiar with James Brown or his music. Or at least I wasn't before I went into this movie. I don't know if that makes me an outcast in all social circles or if I will be stoned for admitting that I am not familiar with James Brown. That said, at least I am honest right? Either way, this review will be from the perspective of someone who wasn't familiar with James Brown going in. I could've researched him or listened to his music before seeing this, but I decided that I didn't want to. I wanted to see if this movie could provide me some good quality entertainment without me knowing much about the man going in. My hope is that at least one or two people would appreciate this perspective. This is star Chadwick Boseman's second biopic role in as many years and while I admit that I enjoyed the movie 42 more than this, Get On Up is succeeds in being a very enjoyable movie.

The approach that Get On Up takes is a fairly unique one. The movie is all over the place. And I don't mean that in a negative way, I mean that in a factual way. This is very much so not in chronological order. We start out towards the end of Brown's life in an instance where he is pretty messed up. Then we jump to the middle of his life where he is super famous, performing tons of shows. Then we jump to his childhood. This all done within the first ten minutes or so. The rest of the movie is presented in puzzle fashion, meaning we keep jumping all over the place from beginning to middle to end till we finally have the whole picture of James Brown's life. Some instances we even cut away mid-scene to a different point in his life and as it goes on, you begin to wonder if it is going to finish that specific story line or just leave it hanging. Luckily all loose ends are tied up and you are left with a pretty well-rounded picture that makes you feel happy in the end, so for the most part this style works out.

However, there is an aspect of this that doesn't work out as well. That's the fact that there isn't a whole ton of story in this movie to tell. I would gestimate that there is about 30 minutes of story in this and 100 minutes of concert or concert rehearsal. This makes this style of telling this story almost necessary because they weave this 30 minutes of movie in with the concert scenes. Thus we get a bit of story, then concert, then a bit more story somewhere else in his life, then concert, and so on and so forth. For the most part this worked, but as I was going I began to think that it was almost as if someone wanted to do a biopic of James Brown because he is a huge influence in the movie world, but as they started they realized that they didn't have much to work with and so for the most part we just get James Brown music. The fact that I really enjoyed the music did make it worthwhile, but it also made it so the movie wasn't quite as epic as other recent biopics such as 42 and Lee Daniels' The Butler, both from last year.

The big tipping point in making this movie worthwhile was the amazing cast, which of course is led by Chadwick Boseman as James Brown. While it is kind of odd that Boseman has played two biopic roles so close to each other, he was great in both so I'm not complaining. I suppose studios have noticed that if they want to do a biopic of a famous black person from the civil rights era, he's their man to turn to. Because really, he is quite fantastic as James Brown. There's been very early chatter of Boseman potentially getting an Oscar nomination for this role and if that happened, I would not be complaining. In addition to Boseman, though, there is a great supporting cast. The movie is from the same director as The Help and I did notice that there is a good number of cast members in this movie that were also in that one, namely Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Nelsan Ellis. Also in related to the cast, I was super impressed with the hair and makeup in this movie. Boseman has so many different hairstyles throughout the movie, as does everyone else in the band, and it's impressive. Also, as they jump back and forth from younger James Brown to older James Brown, Boseman does actually look older and younger. Some movies try to make the actors look older and simply fail (yeah I'm looking you you Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 -- old versions of Harry, Ron and Hermione were terrible), but this one actually succeeds.

Overall, I can't officially make a claim for what fans of James Brown would think of this movie. I don't know how historically accurate this is to what actually happened in James Brown's life. If there are parts that are way off, I wouldn't know at all because I haven't done the research to compare. I also don't know if it was Boseman actually singing the part as opposed to just lip-synching and if so how his voice compares to James Brown's music. I could do all that research, but I don't really care to. All I know is that I went into this movie without knowing much about James Brown in hopes that I could still enjoy this movie and I did. The acting was great, especially by Boseman. The music was great. The story that did exist was emotional and moving while the concert scenes that dominated the movie were also enjoyable. If you are a big James Brown fan I think you would like this? But if you are like me and aren't familiar with him, I still think you will enjoy this. My grade for Get On Up is a 7.5/10.

Guardians of the Galaxy Review

Arguably one of Marvel's biggest risks yet has finally come to theaters. Before any semblance of marketing on Guardians of the Galaxy came out, some thought that this could be Marvel's first huge disappointment. First off, the Guardians of the Galaxy comics aren't very well known at all; second, its a much different tone than any other Marvel movie. This meant that if this movie were to be successful, it would all come down to Marvel's name brand and their marketing. And, well, you know the end of this story. The marketing for this movie was a grand slam. Marvel's large fan base was going to show up no matter what. Being a part of that, I can tell you that I am completely sold and excited for every single movie they will make. As of today, there's seven movies on the docket that have release dates, but don't have titles yet. And yet I am still excited for those just because it's Marvel. However, the Guardians of the Galaxy marketing made this movie appeal to all audiences, not just people like me. Add onto that the stellar reviews and suddenly Marvel's huge risk has has gone the huge reward route as Marvel has conjured up one of their most successful films yet in multiple areas. And let me tell you, if you have not yet journeyed out to the theaters to see this film, you need to get on that because this movie is fantastic!

Being that this is an origin story for a group of unknown superheroes, the movie was forced to spend much of the time introducing the characters and letting the audience get to know them. This isn't a bad thing. Just a necessary thing that all superhero origin stories have to deal with. This usually means that the plot and the villain are somewhat limited as compared to what sequels are able to do. You don't want to throw out the huge arch-nemesis right at the beginning. And you don't want to spend the majority of the movie with your superhero fighting that arch-nemesis because if a connection isn't established, the audience isn't going to be as emotionally invested in this huge moment of the franchise. Just look at all the best superhero franchises and you will see that this is the case the majority of the time. The big fight and the big villain are always saved for later, thus often making for a more liked movie. And even if we branch out to other non-superhero franchises, this is the case. The Dark Knight, Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers are classic examples of this.

I bring all of this up because most people are claiming that Guardians of the Galaxy is the best movie of the year, the best movie of the summer and/or the best Marvel movie made yet. My claim is that it isn't. It's not better than The LEGO Movie (my movie of the year); it's not better than Edge of Tomorrow (my movie of the summer); and it's not better than The Avengers (my favorite Marvel movie) or Captain America: The Winter Soldier (My favorite Phase 2 movie).  And thus I feel like a grinch by saying this because anything short of me saying this is the best movie ever will be seen as disappointing. I hope this isn't seen as a negative review, because I did love this movie, but if me not claiming it's the best is disappointing in your eyes, then I want to make sure you understand why. The story isn't epic like the S.H.I.E.L.D. civil war in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It isn't as deep and psychological as what Tony Stark went through in Iron Man 3. And it certainly isn't as huge as the amazing novelty of bringing together four major superheroes, plus a handful of side superheros, into one epic battle like is the case with The Avengers. It's a simple story where Star-Lord has stolen a valuable orb and is thus being chased down by the villain Ronan. One thing leads to another and suddenly it's not just Star-Lord, but a group of quirky outcasts that also include Gamora, Rocket, Groot and Drax. The point of the movie is not to tell an epic story, but rather to help us get to know this awesome group of quirky heroes. It's necessary, but at the same time I can't put it ahead of all the epicness that Marvel has already produced.

Also, the villain conundrum of not having the huge arch-nemesis as your very first villain hurts this movie a bit. Ronan is a decent villain, but he's not a memorable one. In five or ten years from now, we will look back at all the movies that have been made up to that point and we will probably forget that Ronan even existed at that point. Ronan might not be the worst villain that Marvel has introduced, but if I were to rank all of the current Marvel villains, he'd already be towards the bottom and we haven't even gotten to Ultron or Thanos.

But enough is enough. No, this isn't the best movie ever, but it's certainly a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. And what made this work is the brilliant chemistry between our five guardians. Chris Pratt is amazing as Star-Lord and with this, The LEGO Movie and next year's Jurassic World, it's certainly a great time in his career. Zoe Saldana is awesome as Gamora. It seems like she's just great when you change her skin color (she's blue in Avatar and green in this -- her two biggest roles). Dave Bautista isn't the best actor, but him as Drax works rather well. And finally, the two characters that totally steal the show are Bradley Cooper's Rocket and Vin Diesel's Groot. Rocket is absolutely hilarious. Groot is both adorable and awesome. I'm really quite impressed that he could be that awesome with only saying three words the entire movie, "I am Groot." Not only were these characters awesome and hilarious, but they had a surprising amount of depth and character growth as the movie went.

Finally, I want to talk about the tone of this movie. Yes, there has been plenty of movies with hilarious one-liners throughout -- anything with Iron Man or Thor is this way -- but Guardians is different because the movie is essentially an outright tongue-in-cheek comedy that is not really meant to be taken seriously at all. That is very unique for any superhero movie, Marvel Cinematic Universe or not, but it works fantastically. I was laughing out loud for the entire movie. But what was more impressive is that movie also had plenty of emotional drama to go along with it and it was the perfect balance. Also, the comedy and the drama didn't over-step one another's grounds, which often happens in comedies. Movies can be ruined by trying to be funny when they should be serious or trying to be serious when they should be funny. Guardians doesn't do this and is thus super impressive.

Overall I did love this movie. No, I didn't think it was the best ever, but that doesn't matter. If you did think it was the best ever, we really don't disagree all that much. It was limited by the fact that it needed to spend a lot of time helping us as an audience get to know these instead of telling an epic story. It was also limited by the fact that it couldn't introduce their best villain in this show. However, that's not an excuse because even if they couldn't introduce the franchise's main villain, they could've done better than what they did. Despite that though, Guradians of the Galaxy is a hilarious movie with great drama and great chemistry. I think that the sequel that was already announced at Comic-Con has the potential to be bigger and better, and thus I am super excited for the direction of this franchise. And I also look forward to a potential teaming-up of the Guardians and the Avengers (Avengers 3?). I give Guardians of the Galaxy an 8.5/10.

P.S.- Any thoughts on the purpose of that end credits scene?

Movie Preview: August 2014

The Summer of 2014 has come whimpering to a close. While there have been plenty of crowd-pleasers such as X-Men: Days of Future Past and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (both those titles currently are 90%+ on rottentomatoes and hold a spot on IMDb's Top 250), no movie this summer has even crossed $250 million domestically (Captain America: The Winter Soldier has, but that was an April release). In comparison, every summer since 2002 has produced at least one movie that ended up crossing $300 million. The last time a summer didn't produce a $250 million movie was back in 2000. Looking strictly at July of 2014, the box office turned out to be especially weak as this was the lowest grossing July in over ten years. Now August is typically the lowest grossing movie month of the Summer as studios usually release their bigger titles earlier. But this August could actually be different. With how weak July was this year and an August schedule that includes titles such as Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, there's a chance that this August could actually top this July. At the very least, these titles, along with a handful of wild cards, should be able to challenge the August record set last year. So let's dive in and see what the final summer month of 2014 has in store.

August 1st - 3rd- 

Starting off the month of August with a huge bang is the tenth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that of course is Guardians of the Galaxy. Usually Marvel waits till the big months to release their movies, but for whatever reason, this year was their experimental year as Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released in April while Guardians of the Galaxy is being released in August. Although Marvel is done experimenting with dates for a while (all their movies from 2015-2019 are in either May, July or November), this shows that release date isn't everything. Ever since it was announced, Guardians of the Galaxy has been seen as Marvel's riskiest movie yet. First off, very few people actually know about the Guardians of the Galaxy comics. Second, the tone of this one is completely different from any other Marvel movie. This could mean epic disaster for Marvel. However, the marketing for the movie has been genius and add that to the excellent reviews and it looks like that Marvel is once again going to score a home run. Disney is expecting $65 million for the weekend, which is exactly what Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger got. It looks like Guardians will top both of those, though, as Fandango is reporting that it is outselling both of them. Fandango also reports that it is becoming their best August pre-seller in company history, so it will likely top the August opening weekend record which belongs to The Bourne Ultimatum at $69 million.

Providing some counter programming to Guardians will be the James Brown biopic Get on Up. Oscar season doesn't get into full swing until around October, but August is the month where we usually start to see early contenders and Get on Up has been thought of as the movie that will be this year's contender from August. If you haven't heard the name Chadwick Boseman, now would be the time to start paying attention. Last year he starred as Jackie Robinson in the movie 42, so he's pretty good at these biopic roles. The very early word is that Boseman will at least be in the conversation when it comes to the best actor nominations from this year. Back in 2011, The Help took advantage of an August release date to get both critical and financial success that led to four Oscar nominations and one win. Get on Up is from the same director as The Help, so it will look to follow in its shoes.

Finally, the movie A Most Wanted Man opened up the weekend before, but will be getting a nationwide expansion this week. A Most Wanted Man is based off the book of the same title and is about a Chechen Muslim immigrant to Hamburg who gets caught up in the war on terror. The huge draw here is that this movie stars the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. No this isn't his last movie as he still has the last two Hunger Games movies that he'll be in, but fans of the actor are bound to eventually show up to this to watch him in his last movie as a lead actor.

August 8th - 10th-

The second weekend of August brings us one of the more controversial films of the year in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michael Bay is technically not the director here, but he is the producer and has his name written all over this project, which is precisely the point of controversy. Fans of TMNT have been nervous about what Michael Bay has planned for their beloved franchise in this modern live-action reboot of the turtles. Megan Fox being cast as April O'Neil didn't and neither did the arrival of the trailers as the movie looked nothing more than a Transformers movie with Ninja Turtles. However, regardless of the response to the film, the financial outlook of the movie looks good, especially since controversy sparks curiosity. Also, Bay does have a big following that makes his movies critic-proof. Looking at Transforms: Age of Extinction as an example, that movie seemed to be collectively hated by critics and audiences (17% on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.3 on IMDb), but yet has already hit $1 billion world wide, led mainly by a huge charge in China where the movie has become the highest grossing film of all time there, earning nearly $100 million more than it has in the United States.

We've already had a couple food-related movies this year with The Lunchbox and Chef, but we will be getting a third this weekend via The Hundred-Foot Journey. This movie is about an Indian family who moves to France and sets up a restaurant right across the street from another popular French restaurant owned by Madame Mallory, who is played by Helen Mirren. Very early word is that Helen Mirren could be a potential Oscar nominee for her role in this movie, but it's obviously too early to tell. Considering the neglect towards the family audience this summer, the PG rating for this movie could pique the interest families. Also going for the movie is the fact that it's produced by Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, among others.

Next up is disaster movie Into the Storm. Advertising for this movie has sold this as a movie that tries to show audiences what it is like to get caught in a tornado. Immediately what comes to mind is the 1996 movie Twister  and thus it remains to be seen if audiences will be interested in what may seem like a rehashing of that movie. In order to separate itself, filmmakers have done this movie in found-footage style, which may not turn out for the better. Found-footage movies have done very well in the past, but it seems like the genre has worn off on audiences. One evidence of this is last month's Earth to Echo which was able to gain pretty no traction. In a crowded month, Into the Storm could be looked over by audiences.

Last off for this weekend is Step Up All In. This is the fifth installment in the Step Up franchise, each coming out in two year increments since 2006. Step Up All In brings in several dancers from the previous movies for one big dance-off movie. The first Step Up did good business financially and while the sequels haven't done poorly, each one has declined in in grosses, so it's not likely that this one is anything special, although Step Up fans are still bound to show up.

August 15th - 17th-

Speaking of controversy, The Expendables 3 has gained quite a bit of it recently following the news that this third installment will be getting a PG-13 rating instead of the typical R rating that the previous two have received. This could do one of two things. First option is that fans of the franchise get angry and skip this movie after accusing it of being watered down, thus leading this one to be the lowest-grossing of the three. Second option is that the PG-13 rating expands the audience to those who usually don't care for R-rated action films, but will show up for PG-13 action films. It's unknown which of these will happen at this point, but as far as the movie goes, much of the same should be expected. The ever growing cast of action stars in this franchise adds Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson to this third installment while keeping much of the same cast from the first two films.

Also coming to theaters this weekend is the movie adaption of the popular Lois Lowry novel The Giver. Ever since this was announced, fans of the book became excited because this seems like a novel that would work very well as a movie. However, excitement was diminished significantly at the reveal of the first trailer. Fans became upset that it seemed their book wouldn't be done right on the big screen. The next trailer healed some wounds, but not all. Now The Giver is stuck in a tough spot. It's trying to be the next big dystopian movie and thus hopes to gain some leftover summer movie excitement. At the same time, it's hoping that it can get some awards recognition by being released near Oscar season and heavily advertising the fact that it includes Oscar-winners Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges. Unfortunately it may have shot itself in the foot with the marketing and thus it may end up getting lost in August and become the next failed dystopian movie.

Next up is the buddy comedy movie Let's Be Cops. So far this year was very good to both of the other buddy comedies that came out, that being Ride Along and 22 Jump Street. Also, in the last several years the summer season has been very good to R-rated comedies and this summer has been no different, minus a few exceptions. Last August saw We're the Millers break out and wind up as the biggest movie of the month. With the loaded August schedule, that definitely won't be the case here, but there is a good chance this does fairly well and supports what should be a fairly strong month. Advertisements has promised plenty of laughs for audiences, which is of course is the key for success.

August 22nd - 24th-

It's been almost ten years since since Frank Miller's Sin City came to theaters. A sequel has been in the works for a while now and finally in this weekend of August, fans of Sin City will be graced by Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Sin City of course was based the Sin City neo-noir comics (later turned graphic novels), which were written and drawn by none other than Frank Miller himself. The Sin City movie did decent business back in April 2005, but was extremely well-liked as it owns a place in the IMDb Top 250. This sequel is primarily based on Frank Miller's first comic in the series, also entitled A Dame to Kill For. Returning for the sequel will be Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, and Bruce Willis, while Josh Brolin and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will among the new cast members.

Joining A Dame to Kill For will be the film adaption of If I Stay. This is based off the popular young-adult novel written by Gayle Forman. In this story, 17-year-old Mia Hall gets in a car crash with her family, putting her in a coma. Mia has an out-of-body experience where she watches the doctors treat her and she is thus left with a big decision: does she decide to wake up and live a life that would be much harder than before or does she slip away and die? This isn't a Christian drama, but it was advertised in front all the big Christian movies that came out earlier this year and the life or death premise of the movie could be one that these audiences could buy into. The movie stars 17-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz as the title character of Mia, who has certainly had quite the career already for a 17-year-old as she has starred in movies such as the Kick-A-- movies as well as others like Let Me In, Hugo, and the Carrie remake. 

The final movie for this weekend is the sports drama When the Game Stands Tall. This movie is based on the true story of a high school football team that owned a record 151 game winning streak. The drama in the movie centers on what happens to the team and the overall city when the winning streak is finally broken. Thus everyone has to learn how to pick themselves back up and move forward. Sports movies usually have a limited ceiling financially and the fact that this is being released in the dead zone that starts in late August isn't a good sign. Also, this year hasn't been good to the two sports movies that have already came out as Draft Day and Million Dollar Arm both opened to around $10 million. However, if it ends up with good reviews, break-out sports movies do happen and the fact that this summer has been extremely lacking in family-friendly movies could play out in its favor. Jim Cavaziel, who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ is the big name in this one as he plays legendary head coach Bob Ladouceur.

August 29th - September 1st- 

Rounding out the month of August will be the infamous Labor Day weekend. Historically speaking, this is not the place you want to be if you want to make money as there have only been three movies in history that have opened up above $20 million for the four-day weekend. It doesn't look like this year will be any different, but there will be two movies that will try. The first of these two is The November Man, which is an action thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Luke Bracey (G.I. Joe: Retaliation). Brosnan has had an excellent career, but this probably won't be one that he James Bond star will be bragging about as this looks like a fairly generic action movie coming out on a very poisonous weekend. This does open up on Wednesday the 27th in an attempt to get a head start on the weekend, which may or may not work out.

Also most likely set to fail on this weekend is As Above/So Below. This movie is a horror thriller set around two archaeologists searching for a lost treasure in the catacombs of Paris. This movie is directed by John Erik Dowdle, whose only other work is Devil and Quarantine, both of which opened in the low teen millions and ended around $30 million. That seems like a fair price tag to put on this one as well. No reason to believe it will be any higher.

Lucy Review

Back in 2011, there was a movie called Limitless that was released. The basic premise was that a guy takes a pill that allows him to access 100 percent of his brain. Personally I thought the movie was dumb. Interesting premise, but poorly executed with a rather lame message that it left the audience with. While I'm not here to review that movie, I bring it up because I am almost certain that Luc Besson watched that movie and said to himself, "What if I were to make a movie that uses that exact same premise, but instead turn it into an insane and crazy action-thriller?" Because, seriously, that's exactly what Lucy is. Limitless on steroids. Turns out this worked out quite well. Not only is Lucy on pace to demolish Limitless in terms of box office numbers, but in my personal opinion, Lucy is a much better movie. Crazy, insane, and weird, yes. But I walked out with a positive feeling towards the movie as opposed to the negative feeling I got with Limitless.

As mentioned, the whole premise of this movie centers around the idea that humans can only achieve 10 percent of their brain capacity. Then we throw out the idea of what would happen if the full 100 percent could be achieved. Is this an accurate theory? Can humans only achieve 10 percent of their brain capacity? I don't know. In discussing this topic, I've talked to several people that will tell me this is completely false. But is it? I think of the capacity of my brain and I will fully admit that there are a lot of things my brain can't do. And not trying to make this a religious discussion, but if try to think of perfect capacity, I think of God's brain. There's definitely a huge difference between my brain and God's brain and I don't think anyone would argue with that. So whatever scientific term you want to use to explain that difference, that's what this movie touches on. Not that this is a religious movie. It's not. But that's what I thought of as Lucy slowly gained more and more brain capacity and thus gained more and more abilities.

But let's not kid ourselves here. Whatever stance you take on the brain capacity issue that I just talked about shouldn't really matter. This is not trying to be a realistic movie at all. This is a movie that is taking an interesting concept and turning it into a high octane thriller. And by goodness does this movie take you on quite the wild ride. And not all of it is good. In fact, the beginning of this movie was a bit much. First off, it was really odd. Right at the beginning Lucy gets thrown into this awful situation by her idiot boyfriend where she is being chased by a bunch of Chinese people trying to catch her because of this suitcase that her boyfriend handcuffed to her arm. While this is happening, we get parallel shots of a cheetah chasing down an impala. What? I mean, I understood the parallel perfectly, but I had no idea why it was happening. And this kept happening throughout the first part of the movie. In addition to that, this got really gross rather quickly. If you have a weak stomach, this may be a movie to skip.

Once we get through the crazy beginning, though, we get to the whole reason why I went to see this movie in the first place. Scarlett Johannson kicking trash. Scarlett Jo has been a favorite actress of mine for quite some time, but she climbed way up high on the awesome ladder after her epic performance as Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Just so happens that the timing of this movie is brilliant because I was totally ready for more epic Scarlett Jo after that and boom! This movie came along just a few short months after. And let me tell you, she is brilliant. She's good as normal Scarlett Jo, but then once her character Lucy gets drugged, she starts turning into Black Widow and becomes totally awesome. Then things escalate even more and she starts becoming not just Black Widow, but a combination of pretty much every Marvel character you can think of. When she's at this stage, a lot of crazy, weird, absurd things happen because she is able to do like anything she wants. This made things slightly less tense because you know that none of the crazy Chinese people chasing her has any shot of stopping her, but to me it was pretty fun to witness because, like I said, Scarlett Jo is a boss and watching her kick everyone's trash is pure entertainment.

I was nervous about the final act of this movie because Limitless crashed and died with the final act and I was afraid that this would do the same thing. But it didn't. In fact, when the end credits rolled around, I was in awe. Sure the conclusions of this movie were like the rest of this movie: completely absurd and ridiculous. This is Luc Besson. What'd you expect? But in my opinion it was also super epic. Of course I'm not going to even think about diving into specifics. I want to leave that a surprise. Just know that I enjoyed the ending and if you want to talk to me in person about it, I would be more than willing to oblige. So overall, Lucy was a super crazy and super weird movie. It was completely unrealistic and very absurd. But it was the type of crazy, weird, unrealistic and absurd that I found myself enjoying for some weird reason. I'll admit that it's not for everyone, especially because it gets overly gross and violent at times, but if you consider yourself a special type of crazy like myself, you might enjoy your time seeing it. I give Lucy an 8/10.

Hercules Review

Hollywood often goes on these random mini-fetishes that almost makes no sense. For example, back in 2012 we had two Snow White movies come out within a few months of each other. It's awfully strange that two separate parties both came up with the idea of a live-action Snow White movie at practically the same time. This year the subject is Hercules. I don't know why we randomly got two Hercules movies in one year, but it happened. Miss the first go around of Hercules back in January? Good. Count yourself extremely lucky that you missed the outright disaster that was The Legend of Hercules. Despite all that has come our way, that movie still remains one of the worst of the year. I had hope that Dwayne Johnson's version would do Hercules justice. While the movie does have its fair share of issues, I am happy to report that Hercules is an entertaining movie that is in fact worth your time.

Hercules is advertised as the untold story of Hercules. Or the story you've never heard. Something like that. Point is they wanted to tell a story about Hercules that hasn't been done yet. I give them props for that. And if that was their goal, they succeeded. They created a Hercules world that we've never seen. The premise of this movie is that Hercules' past is pretty much unknown, outside the fact that he is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, making him a demigod. Eventually the movie teases a past that is potentially a bit shady, but all we really know is that it haunts Hercules, which gives him a bit of depth. Outside this, Hercules is essentially an outcast, but he's formed a group of outcast friends and together they form a sort of family. The bulk of this movie centers around this group being hired by the King of Thrace to train his men to be a great army that can defeat a strong enemy. Hercules' group never really cares about the why, the who, or the where of what they do, just as long as they get paid, so of course they take this job without thinking twice.

Being perfectly honest, this movie isn't very deep in plot. It's a somewhat shallow movie that is simply meant to entertain and that's exactly what it does. What really makes this work is the cast. First and foremost is Dwayne Johnson. You'll notice recently that I don't refer to him as "The Rock." Just Dwayne Johnson. This is because as of late, he has transformed himself from this crazy wrestler dude that doesn't know how to act, but is cast because of his size, into a legit actor who in fact DOES know how to act. And once again he proves this in this movie. He does a fantastic job as Hercules. Even though the movie itself doesn't have a whole lot of depth, Dwayne Johnson gives the character of Hercules a lot of depth. That and he looks and acts like you would think Hercules would. He's especially huge in this movie and because of that strength he is able to stand there in battle and just beat the living daylights out of anyone who tries to step in his way. Despite Dwayne Johnson being good in this, his small group of outcasts/mercenaries are all great in supporting Johnson. We have Ian McShane as the prophet Amphiaraus; Rufus Sewell as the thief Autolycus; Askel Hennie as the crazy, borderline morbid warrior; Ingrid Bolso Berdan as the awesome archer girl Atalanta; and the storyteller Iolaus. Together they make a very likable group that is very fun to watch.

In discussing a movie about Hercules, the Greek mythology of the character needs to be discussed. First, before we get any further, yes I know that Hercules is in fact Roman, the son of Jupiter and not Zeus. But do you know what, this is one of those instances where I ask who cares. Not me. And not this movie. Yes, Heracles is the son of Zeus, but do you know what, Disney is the one that botched all that up and because of that when we dive into Hercules, most people will know Hercules as the son of Zeus. And we all love that Disney movie, so it only makes sense that if we do a modern live-action version that we stick with what Disney gave us. If we made a movie called Heracles, not as many would know what the heck we were doing. And hey, perhaps Disney wasn't the first one to botch that up. I don't know. I actually don't know much about the mythology of Hercules, I just know that when I watched this movie it didn't seem like it was following any sort of accurate theology, but instead were making most if it up as they go. This is of course unverified. I was actually thinking to myself during the movie that maybe I should go look up the theology before I do my review. I like doing this. It makes me feel informed about the history of the character I just watched. But as the movie continued, I did something unique to me. I decided to heck with the theology. I'm just going to enjoy the movie and the characters they give me. And I did. I was entertained.

However, the biggest issue I did have was that I felt the movie could've done a lot more. No, I didn't care if they followed the theology of Hercules. Disney didn't. But I did feel that, despite me not knowing the theology, it does exist and if they are going to do a movie about Hercules it would be fun if they were to dive into the world of Hercules, even if it was their own interpretation. But all we did was follow Hercules and his band of outcasts as they performed this certain mission for this certain king. Yes, it's a bit more than that, but I don't want to give any plot away. What they did was entertaining. But it felt empty. This movie had a lot of potential to something big and amazing, but I felt that they didn't care to dive into that. But hey, it's Brett Ratner. The man isn't known for doing deep, profound movies. He just likes to entertain and that's what he does here. I suppose if you are one of the hardcore X-Men fans that have a personal vendetta against Ratner for what he did with X3 and are bound and determined to hate everything he makes, then I suppose there was nothing I could say to convince you anyways. But if you go in objectively and just try to be entertained by the well-acted, visual spectacle that is Dwayne Johnson's Hercules, you might find yourself being entertained by the movie, despite it being shallow in story. My grade for Hercules is a 7/10.

The Fluffy Movie Review

"IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GOING TO DIE!!!!!" Uhhhh.... no. Wrong Fluffy. Although that is a hilarious moment in one of the greatest animated movies, The Fluffy Movie has nothing to do with a giant stuffed unicorn at a theme park or anything of the sorts. Fluffy is the nickname of one of my personal favorite comedians, Gabriel Iglesias. While he has done comedy for a long time, The Fluffy Movie is his first attempt at a stand-up comedy movie. So yes, that's all this is. A stand-up comedy movie. As in Fluffy had one of his live shows recorded and had it thrown into theaters. Smart move if you think about it. That probably didn't cost much of anything and the result is a good chunk of money and increased publicity. Being that this is a stand-up comedy movie, this review will be a lot different in that I'm essentially reviewing a stand-up comedy routine and not a movie. It may not seem like there could be much said here, but I actually do have quite a bit to say because this was fantastic!

In reflecting on my favorite comedians, I have come up with a few aspects that make a good comedian. First and foremost, a good comedian has to make me laugh. And of course, the more I laugh the better. Second, the comedian's jokes should be memorable. If I totally forget about the jokes the next day, that's a problem. Third is creativity. One good joke or one good routine doesn't cut it. Neither does talking about the same subject over and over. Fourth, the best comedians are the ones who are naturally funny. It's easy to tell when a normally serious person is trying to force humor and it just doesn't work. Now obviously comedy is purely opinion based, just like movies, but in my opinion Gabriel Iglesias excels on all these fronts. Yes, he makes me laugh. A lot. That may seem like an obvious judgement, but there's actually a lot of comedians that I just don't find funny, so the fact that I am a huge fan of Iglesias should say a lot. In my opinion, the man is naturally funny. Comedy comes easy to him and thus he always has different things to talk about. Sure, he has reoccurring themes just like every comedian, but his routines are different enough and creative enough that it makes me look forward to his new stuff. And of course a lot of his stuff is memorable and usually very relatable.

Now that you know my general opinion of Fluffy, I of course want to talk about this specific routine. All I wanted from this was for him to make me laugh like he always does. I didn't need to walk out thinking that this was the best comedy routine ever or even that this was the best I've heard from Fluffy. I just wanted to laugh. However, I was surprised by how excellent this was. This wasn't just a typical Fluffly comedy routine, this was Fluffy at his best. I don't feel that he just woke up one day and decided to record his next comedy routine and put it in theaters. This one had a lot of thought put into it. He knew that this was going to be his Fluffy movie and he wanted to do something with it. He wanted to leave an impression. And that's what he did. How did he do it? He made it personal. He started by talking about some of his personal struggles. Recently he had a pretty bad scare where his doctor told him that if didn't make some changes, he'd only have two more years to live. Later on he talked about his wife, his son, and his parents in a very emotional way that was both touching and inspiring. The tribute in the end that ties into his final story is pretty awesome.

So in the end, I went into this just wanting to have a good time. I didn't expect perfection, I just wanted to laugh. And not only was I laughing hysterically the entire time, but I also felt touched and inspired in the end. This is truly the best of Fluffy. My recommendation here is simple and easy. If you like Fluffy, you are going to love this. If you aren't familiar with Fluffy, I would suggest familiarizing yourself with him the free and easy way before you spend the money for a movie. If you have a Netflix or Amazon Prime account, there's a good chance that you can find his well-known comedy routines there. If not, there's this beautiful website known as YouTube. Look him up. If you like what you see, go pay for The Fluffy Movie. It will be worth every penny you pay. I payed a little more than I usually do when I see movies simply because my options were limited, but I have no regrets. My grade for The Fluffy Movie? Well, I don't really have a grading system for comedies routines. It gets an A or a 9/10. Whatever you want to say. Simply put, if you like Fluffy, you'll love this. Go see it.