Green Book Review

On November 27, the National Board of Review named "Green Book" as their best film of 2018. A few hours later, I went and saw the movie. This was purely coincidental as I was already planning on seeing the movie that day before I heard that announcement. This was the week after Thanksgiving and I had already seen "Ralph Breaks the Internet" and "Creed II," so it was time to go see the other movie that I was wanting to see that opened (or expanded, rather) that week. The National Board of Review is one of the first major precursors for the Oscars, so it was the first look into what movies are going to get some attention come time for the Oscar nominations in late January. Following the announcement from the National Board of Review, AFI also listed "Green Book" as one of their top 10 best films of 2018. The Golden Globes then gave it five nominations, including best picture, best actor for Viggo Mortensen and best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali. Just recently, the SAGs also gave nods to Mortensen and Ali. So yeah, this movie is becoming quite the big deal this awards season and is certain to pick up a whole slew of Oscar nominations in January. Why it took me over two weeks to write my review is an excellent question, but here we are, so let's talk.

If you're not as crazy about the Oscars as I am and you're wondering what in the heck this "Green Book" movie is, well let me explain. This is a movie that is directed by Peter Farrelly, one half of the Farrelly brothers duo who directed "Dumb and Dumber," "There's Something About Mary," "Me, Myself & Irene," "Shallow Hal" and several other similar wacky comedies. But no, "Green Book" is absolutely not that style of comedy. In fact, it couldn't be any different from pretty much everything Peter Farrelly has done in the past, which is impressive in and of itself. Yeah, sure, it has comedy in it, but it is first and foremost a drama that tells the true story of an unlikely friendship between Dr. Don Shirley, a black classical pianist in the 1960's, and Tony Lip, a through and through New Yorker who has spent most of his time working as a bouncer in various clubs. They meet because Tony's job is done for a few months while the club remodels, so he needs a new job. Eventually he gets referred to Dr. Shirley, who is looking for a driver for his upcoming tour. It takes a bit of convincing, but Tony eventually accepts the job, with permission from his wife, which puts him on the road with Dr. Shirley for several weeks. Thus the movie becomes a road trip movie with these two characters.

Now I will stress again that this is not a comedy. Dr. Shirley and Tony aren't cracking jokes the whole time or pulling of gags like Harry and Lloyd in "Dumb and Dumber." But there is a lot of comedy in the movie that's more or less natural comedy given that these two characters are completely opposite of each other. Dr. Shirley is very elegant and proper. He also feels a bit compulsive as everything has to be done perfectly. Tony is the exact opposite. He feels very much like a redneck living in New York in that he is super chill and relaxed. He's also a bit disorganized and scattered, but he does a dang good job at what he does. When they get to a certain location and the people setting up for the concert don't have the right piano that Dr. Shirley wants, he's not afraid to confront them and force them into getting things right. But the humor comes in with the personality clash between these two. Watching them naturally interact with each other is hilarious because of how different they are and both Mortensen and Ali do a great job of staying in character and sticking to their guns. It's two genuinely fantastic performances as the two of them completely disappear into their characters, making you fully believe that its Dr. Shirley and Tony rather than Mahershala and Viggo.

But no, this is not your normal every day road trip on a concert tour. This is a white guy and a black guy travelling together through the South, because that's the region that Dr. Shirley insists on doing his tour. And remember, the time period here is the 1960's. So yeah, with that in mind, you know exactly what type of movie this going to be. And for better or for worse, the movie delivers on that. In terms of the "for worse" part of that, there's a term called "Oscar bait" that oftentimes comes with a negative connotation. The movie does a great job of specifically pandering to the awards season crowd, taking the list of things needed to be included in order to be considered for awards and shamelessly checking off every single box. The movie knows what it needs to do to be culturally relevant in 2018 and it makes sure to do just that. I imagine some might get bothered by this, viewing the movie that as one made to bait the Academy rather than being made to tell a good story worth telling. But I wasn't one of said people bothered by it. I think the big reason that I wasn't was because I was so attached to these two characters. I had a feeling I knew what was coming for them, but the idea still made me nervous and I spent the whole movie cheering for them to make it out of it.

Because, yeah, racism is the big theme here. Dr. Shirley is certainly no stranger when it comes to racism in the 60's, but he also doesn't fit into your typical black person mold from the time period. He personally doesn't feel like he quite fits in with his people, which provides a significant portion of drama for the film. He's not trying to fit in. He's trying to be himself and hopefully do his best to change people's hearts. But that obviously doesn't go quite as planned, especially when they get into the deep South. One of the things that is interesting about their experiences in the film is that Dr. Shirley is going around to people who are openly welcoming him in to perform for them. White people who are mostly super rich. They are inviting him to perform so that they don't look racist, but of course it's all superficial because they don't let him eat in their restaurants, they don't let him use their restrooms and they usually only give him a small closet to get prepared in. So deep down they are super racist, but are using him to put on a mask to make themselves seem good. This is all heartbreaking and tragic, especially when we see Dr. Shirley accept this without any fight or argument. As an audience member, you want to see something done about all of this.

The other person that wants to see something done is Tony. He starts to realize exactly what is going on and he doesn't want to tolerate it, but Dr. Shirley is fairly insistent on not using violence or anger towards these people, even though you can feel him hurting with the way he's being treated. I don't want to dive too deeply into how everything's resolved, but there's some really beautiful character arcs between both Dr. Shirley and Tony. They start off as such opposite characters whose personalities clash very hard. And while those moments create a lot of humor, it also sparks the intense drama that forces both of these characters to learn and to grow from each other and from their experiences on this concert tour. While the sequences involving racism are heartbreaking, especially seeing racism portrayed as people superficially trying to make themselves look good and sound good while deep down they are really awful -- something that perhaps is more accurate than seeing people be bluntly racist, the way this story moves and converges brings a lot of happiness. It teaches that people can learn to grow and live together, regardless of their background. But not just that, it shows that people with vastly different backgrounds can grow to become best friends.

I left "Green Book" feeling so uplifted. It brings all of the warm, fuzzy feel-goods to you in all the right ways. It was a movie about racism that reminded me of something like "Remember the Titans," which is a movie that showcased people of completely different backgrounds and cultures converging to become best friends. Those genuinely crafted relationships in "Remember the Titans" bring you so much joy that you can see the film as an example of the fact that good things can happen in an awful world. These are the exact same feelings I had with "Green Book." It may not go as dark, grim and violent in the portrayals of racism like movies such as "BlacKkKlansman" or "Detroit" do. But it does enough to get the point across loud and clear while focusing mainly on this friendship between Dr. Shirley and Tony that leaves you with such positive, happy feelings. There are plenty moments of humor, but a lot more moments of solid, powerful, genuine emotion. In fact, the movie is centered around the Christmas holiday as the goal is to get back from this tour on Christmas Eve so Tony can spend the holiday with his family. Because of this and other themes that I won't dive into, this could be seen as a perfectly festive movie for the season. I'm going to give "Green Book" a 9/10.

Movie Preview: December 2018

We are now entering the final month of 2018. Awards season is well underway as nominations and awards are already being handed out left and right, giving us a clue as to who is contention for the big awards when the Academy hands out their nominations in January, ahead of their ceremony in February. Thanksgiving is in the rear view mirror and now the world is preparing for Christmas. November kicked off the holiday season quite well, becoming the fourth November on record to cross the $1 billion mark and second in a row after 2017 also hit the milestone. November was also the sixth month of 2018 to cross $1 billion, breaking the record previously held by several different years at five months, with one month left to go. Leading the way domestically in November was "Dr. Suess' The Grinch" with $189.7 million, followed by "Bohemian Rhapsody" with $158.6 million and "The Crimes of Grindelwald" with $126.2 million. "Ralph Breaks the Internet" and "Creed II" also opened well during Thanksgiving, but still have most of their runs ahead of them. December won't be as big as previous years given that there's no Star Wars film being released, but there's still plenty of other big films to talk about with their being quite the busy schedule, so let's begin!

December 7th- 

Quick note on this month. Usually I organize these by weekend. However, the release schedule for movies this month is all over the place, so I'm going to abandon my typical weekend format and sort things by the day of each movie's release, rather than the weekend. Also of note, there are no new wide releases on the first weekend of this month, meaning that "Ralph Breaks the Internet" is about to take its third straight weekend title, mostly by default as there was only one small wide release on the final weekend of November. "Ralph Breaks the Internet" will be followed by "The Grinch," "Creed II," "The Crimes of Grindelwald" and "Bohemian Rhapsody," all making up the top five. That said, there is one notable new entry, although it's not a new release, but rather is the re-release of Steven Spielberg's classic film Schindler's List into 1,181 theaters in honor of its 25th anniversary. The last Spielberg film to get this re-release treatment was "The Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in September 2017 in honor of its 40th anniversary. That released in 901 theaters and opened to $1.7 million. If "Schindler's List" pulled in a similar per theater, that would give it about $2.3 million for the weekend, making it a contender for the weekend top 10.

December 12th- 

The second film we're talking about this month is also a re-release and not a new release, albeit from this year as Fox is re-releasing the PG-13 cut of "Deadpool 2," officially titling it Once Upon a Deadpool. The idea for this re-cut came from Ryan Reynolds himself following the release of "Deadpool 2," using the "Princess Bride" format to edit out the necessary language and violence to create the PG-13 version. In regards to "Princess Bride," Fred Savage himself was brought on for the re-cut, he being the kid from "Princess Bride" who was having his grandfather read him a story. The new scenes were shot in a single day in August. In September, Fox then announced an untitled Deadpool project to be released in December, which was rumored to be this re-cut version of "Deadpool 2." Said rumors were officially confirmed in November, with the movie getting a short 12-day release from December 12 through December 24, playing in about 500 theaters nationwide. Box office comparisons are understandably sparse here, but "The King's Speech" in 2010 also had a PG-13 re-release a few months after its initial release and that opened to $1.1 million in 1,011 theaters. For each ticket sold, Fox will donate $1 to the "Fudge Cancer" charity campaign.

December 14th- 

Following the release of "Once Upon a Deadpool" on Wednesday, the second weekend of December sees three new releases looking to take advantage of the completely empty market at this point before the major December releases come to play the following week. Leading things off will be the highly anticipated release of Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. There was some initial skepticism with this project from fans, as this animated Spider-Man is hitting theaters not too long after "Spider-Man: Homecoming" became our third version of the classic web-slinger this century. Was this Sony's backup plan to keep the rights to the character in case "Homecoming" failed? Well, skepticism went down when early trailers wowed fans and now all that skepticism seems to be gone as early reviews have praised this movie to the high heavens, as it currently holds a 99 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes with 82 reviews counted. "Into the Spider-Verse" will be the first screen introduction of Miles Morales as Spider-Man, which is a big deal in and of itself. But Miles won't be the only Spider-Man as Peter Parker, Spider Gwen, Peni Parker, Spider-Noir and even Spider-Ham will show up as they all try to get back to their respective universes, with Kingpin being the villain.

Hoping to jump on the awards season buzz a bit late will be Clint Eastwood with his new film The Mule. This screenplay for this movie is based on the 2011 New York Times article "The Sinaloa's Cartel's 90-Year-Old Drug Mule" by Sam Dolnick, wherein DEA Special Agent Jeff Moore was interviewed regarding the investigation of Leo Sharp, a former World War II veteran who became a drug dealer and courier for the Sinaloa Cartel while in his 80's. The rights to the article were sold to Imperative Entertainment in 2014. After a few years of discussion and planning, Clint Eastwood became attached as star, director and producer of the film in January 2018, with filming beginning in June 2018. With the late production, the movie is at a disadvantage when it comes to the awards season as it skipped the festival run and has no awards nominations as of yet, possibly because screeners may not have been sent out to voters. Even with no awards, it will hope to catch on with general audiences as movies centered around drug cartels have done well recently, with one major example being last year's "American Made," which opened to $16.8 million. "The Mule" is Eastwood's first lead acting role since "Trouble with the Curve" in 2012.

Coming in at the rear this weekend will be the Peter Jackson produced film Mortal Engines, which is being heavily advertised as being "from the filmmakers of 'Lord of the Rings.'" While not an inaccurate statement by any means, this has been slightly deceiving as it's leading people to believe that Peter Jackson is directing this movie, which is not correct. The movie is being directed by Christian Rivers, who worked in the visual effects and storyboard departments for "Lord of the Rings." This will be his first directorial feature. It does have the same team of writers as "Lord of the Rings" and Peter Jackson is on board to produce, but he's not the director here, which is kind of a big deal. The movie is of the dystopian genre, and is based on the young adult novel about a young woman who teams up with a dangerous outlaw and an outcast from London to lead a rebellion against a giant city on wheels, or a steampunk version of London. The problem here is that this genre has long since died off with most attempted starts in the last few years completely failing, so Peter Jackson trying to bring it back is probably not a good idea. The production budget here is $100 million, yet it's looking at an opening weekend in the range of $8-12 million.

December 19th- 

There are several major releases coming out on the third weekend of December, the weekend before Christmas, but the biggest release of December will be getting a head start on Wednesday and that is Mary Poppins Returns. In case you've been living under a rock in the last few years, Disney has gotten completely carried away with bringing their old classics back to the big screen with various remakes, or in this case a sequel. Many have complained at so many of these films coming out, but despite said complaints, Disney has made bank with this strategy, so they're not going to stop until people stop buying tickets. And by the looks of things, they will be hitting an absolute goldmine by bringing back Mary Poppins as early buzz is currently on fire. Just about every major awards circuit that have given out awards or nominations have included "Mary Poppins Returns" on their best picture list, leading one to believe that this is a shoe-in for a best picture nomination at the Oscars as well as a best lead actress nomination for Emily Blunt, who is taking on the mantle of Mary Poppins from Julie Andrews and reportedly doing so perfectly. This after the most recent trailer blew everyone away as it looks to bring back all the magic from "Mary Poppins." Look for this to completely break the box office and have long legs for several months to come.

December 21st- 

Releasing on the Friday before Christmas are four films, two of which come from franchises that are in desperate need for a win. The first of those two is the return of the DC Extended Universe with Aquaman. Despite the well publicized troubles of the DCEU, it is worth noting that financially they have done really well. The five films have averaged $317 million at the domestic box office, an average that's not far below the $343 million average of the MCU, which was heavily boosted by Marvel's three huge films from this year. That said, it's also worth noting that the most recent DCEU film was "Justice League," which only made $229 million, an awful number in comparison to the totals that every "Avengers" movie has made. It's also DCEU's lowest grossing film. That's why they needs a win to gain back the trust of the DC fan base, as well as comic book fans as a whole. And they are putting their trust in James Wan this time around, who has a proven track record, not only as a popular horror director, but also as an action director with "Furious 7" under his belt. The hope here for DC is that Wan takes Aquaman and delivers a movie on the quality level of a "Wonder Woman." Jason Momoa will, of course, reprise his role from "Justice League" and will be joined by Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, and Dolph Lundgreen.

The other franchise that really needs a win is the "Transformers" franchise. In an attempt to do so, they are taking things in a completely new direction with the movie Bumblebee. Instead of delivering yet another sequel, which would've been the sixth movie in the main saga, they are going the prequel route, in sort of a semi-reboot fashion, by telling the origin story of the popular character of Bumblebee, casting Hailee Steinfeld is the lead female, who discovers Bumblebee in a junkyard back in 1987, shortly after her character turns 18. Now in addition to going the prequel route with this movie, the other major change they are making here is a switch in director. This will be the first modern "Transformers" movie to NOT be directed by Michael Bay. Instead, Travis Knight is at the helm. Knight worked as a lead animator for most of Laika's films and directed Laika's extremely popular animated film "Kubo and the Two Strings." This will be only his second movie he's directed and first in live action. So it's a risk that Paramount is taking here, but it's a risk that probably needs to be made after last year's "Transformers: The Last Knight" made only $130 million domestically and $605 million worldwide, both of which are franchise lows by a long shot.

Looking to compete with the two action tentpoles, as well as Disney's massive "Mary Poppins Returns," is Robert Zemeckis' latest film Welcome to Marwen. This movie stars Steve Carell and tells the true story of Mark Hogancamp, who was a victim of a violent assault. In order to help him cope, he built his own detailed world of action figures and dolls, all of whom represented a person in his life. Hogancamp's story was previously told in a 2010 documentary called "Marwencol" and a 2015 book titled "Welcome to Marwencol. The book was co-written by Hogancamp himself along with Chris Shellen. Given that Zemeckis is at the help here, he being the director of a whole slew of major hits such as "Back to the Future," "Forest Gump" and "Cast Away," this movie has the potential to be a real crowd-pleaser during the holiday season, especially given the popularity of Steve Carell. The problem here is the competition. Yes, it can easily co-exist with "Aquaman" and "Bumblebee," but the presence of "Mary Poppins Returns" is another story. The two movies might be fighting for audience and it's easy to predict which one will win out. Oscar buzz would help this movie out quite a bit, but unfortunately it's had none of that up to this point, so it remains in an awkward position.

Rounding out the slate of new releases on this date is STX Entertainment's release of Second Act. This movie is a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez as Maya, an under-achieving, 40-year-old woman, working a low-paying job, who gets a second chance at a career after private financial firm hires her to handle a major business deal after a fake resume leads them to believe that she is an accomplished consultant. Co-starring along with Lopez is Vanessa Hudgens, Milo Ventimiglia and Leah Remini. The movie is directed by Peter Segal, who recently directed "Grudge Match" and "Get Smart," but is also responsible for a few 90's favorites such as "The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult," "Tommy Boy" and "The Nutty Professor II" as well as a handful of Adam Sandler comedies in the early 2000's. So he has a prestigious enough record with various different comedies that could come in handy in pleasing people wanting a comedy during the holiday season. Given the premise, this could also capture the attention of the female audience. But like "Welcome to Marwen," the competition here is going to be tough, especially because, in terms of comedies, "Second Act" will also have to deal with "Holmes & Watson," which gets released on Christmas.

December 25th-

There's no new wide releases coming out on Friday, December 28, so our final two movies of this month are ones that will be opening right on Christmas Day. The biggest one of the two, in terms of box office anyways, is Holmes & Watson. This is a movie that got its advertising push started a bit late, so the awareness here might not be super high, but Sony will try to remedy that this month because on paper this isn't a tough sell. Sherlock Holmes is one of the more popular fictional characters, especially when it comes to the detective world, and he's had many iterations in the past that have been extremely popular. The two most notable adaptations of late are Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal on the BBC TV series "Sherlock" and the two Guy Ritchie films starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock. "Holmes & Watson" separates itself from the other Sherlock adaptations by being a comedy first and foremost as it's Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as the classic detective duo. The two of them have been comedy gold in the past with the likes of "Talladega Nights" and "Step Brothers" and hope to bring some of that magic back for "Holmes & Watson." Out of the recent movies discussed, this has the potential to survive the competition easiest, but the movie's success will be based solely on how audiences react to the film itself.

The final movie getting a wide release is Adam McKay's Vice. This is movie is a biopic of Dick Cheney, vice president to George W. Bush, and carries with it quite the large cast, which includes Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush, Steve Carrel as Donald Rumsfeld, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell, Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Alison Pull as Mary Cheney, as well as quite a bit more. Adam McKay previously went from comedy director ("Anchorman," "Talladega Nights," "Step Brothers," "The Other Guys") to Oscar powerhouse with the very well received film "The Big Short," which got five Oscar nominations, including best picture, best director and best supporting actor, while winning the award for best adapted screenplay. So his follow-up here has received a lot of buzz ever since it was announced and it's looking like it'll live up to that buzz with various of nominations already, including six Golden Globe nominations. So it's chances of scoring big with the Oscar nominations is quite high. In which case, this will be more of a long-term player at the box office rather set to have long legs. The easy comparison is "The Big Short," which expanded wide on Christmas, making $10 million, but wound up with $70 million overall. 

Major Limited release films:

With these monthly previews, I made the decision a while back to focus specifically on nationwide releases, mostly because covering every major limited release is a daunting task in certain months like this. But since it's Awards season, here are some of the most notable limited releases scheduled for December that will expand to varying degrees throughout December and January, based on how well they do in limited release as well as how well they do as Awards season continues:

- "Ben is Back" (Dec. 7)
- "Mary Queen of Scots" (Dec. 7)
- "Vox Lux" (Dec. 7)
- "If Beale Street Could Talk" (Dec. 14)
- "On the Basis of Sex" (Dec. 25)
- "Stan & Ollie" (Dec. 28)

Widows Review

Earlier this year we experienced the release of the female-led heist film "Ocean's 8." This was an attempt at a more progressive take on the classic heist film, which means I'm a sexist pig who hates females for not enjoying it, right? OK, snarkiness aside, I'm all for progressive films. Privileged, white, American males don't need to be the ones doing everything in Hollywood. Lets get some more voices and diversity into our films. However, I'm also not going to give every movie a pass just because it's attempting to be progressive. Yes, I would love more female-led films, but that in and of itself won't cause me to automatically praise a movie. You've gotta get the filmmaking elements of the film right as well. I need a good script, a good director, good acting, etc. And that's what "Ocean's 8" failed at. Granted, all the ladies gave it their all in terms of the acting, but the movie was a lazy, carbon copy of "Ocean's Eleven" in terms of the script. Now I wasn't planning on bringing this up again this year. I wrote my review and was going to let it go. So why am I bringing it up in this review? Well, that's easy. "Widows" is another female-led heist film that I didn't know we were getting. But this time director Steve McQueen has showed us how to properly pull it off.

When I started hearing the buzz about "Widows" several months ago, I wasn't actually sure what it was. I read the premise and it confused me a bit. But nevertheless, I was excited about it simply because it was directed by Steve McQueen. No, not the actor Steve McQueen who was a huge deal in 60's and 70's. He passed away in 1980. I'm talking about the British director Steve McQueen whose most recent film was the 2013 best picture winner "12 Years a Slave." So yeah, since it was five years since "12 Years a Slave," I was obviously excited when I heard he had another film. Given "12 Years a Slave," I assumed "Widows" was going to be another huge Oscar film this year. And so did most of the Awards prediction sites that I follow. Seemed like a logical assumption. But as it turns out, it's a movie that tries to ride the line of pleasing the Academy while also pleasing the general public. Unfortunately, in doing so it seems to have fallen through the cracks as a movie that, despite strong critical reviews, isn't quite the type of movie that the Academy gravitates towards, so it's not getting a lot of Oscar buzz at the moment. In terms of pleasing the public, it got lost in the busy Thanksgiving week with the likes of "Creed II," "The Crimes of Grindelwald" and "Ralph Breaks the Internet."

Because of that, perhaps it would've been better if I had got my review of this out a bit earlier, but that didn't happen. Sorry. So hopefully with this review I can convince a person or two to search it out and go see it in theaters soon or perhaps look out for it whenever it hits streaming or Redbox. Because I think this is well worth seeing. As far as the premise goes, female-led heist film is the most basic way to describe this. Although in terms of specifics, there is a lot more layers to this with several story arcs weaving through, a few of which I will completely avoid so that your experience won't be ruined by reading this review. In short, we start the film off with a criminal team consisting of Liam Neeson, Jon Bernthal, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Coburn Goss. But they're all here in this movie to go boom as the robbery that they are trying to pull off goes horribly wrong and they all explode in a tragic accident while trying to get away from the authorities. This causes all of their wives to become widows. One of said widows, played by Viola Davis, was married to Liam Neeson's character and shortly after he went boom, she gets threatened by the guy her husband just robbed, so to pay him off, she recruits the other widows to pull off the heist that their husbands were going to do next using some notes they left behind.

Again, that's the basic premise there. There's a lot going on here and I was spending a good portion of the first half of the movie trying to figure out how this was going to play. Turns out all of the story arcs weave together quite well, creating a film that's a fascinating character study with a ton of emotion included combined with one heck of an entertaining heist film that's actually rather intense because these ladies aren't experienced at all in this whole heist thing, so there's a lot of stakes involved. While some of the "Ocean's" movies are entertaining, what makes them a bit predictable is that they are a team of experts who have a meticulously planned heist, thus there's not as much stakes because you know they are going to succeed. "Widows," on the other hand, proves early on that they are willing to cast big name actors just to make them go boom really quick, so there's no guarantee that anyone makes it to the end of the movie alive. And since the ladies don't know what they're doing, their plan is based almost solely on some notes left behind and are motivated by the fact that they don't have much else to lose. Viola Davis is going to get her head blown in if she doesn't get the money in time, so she's desperately jumping in and trying something, knowing that it might not work.

Adding to that is the people chasing them down if they don't get the money are pretty intimidating as the movie's villains. This actually revolves around an election. Colin Farrell's character is trying to win re-election in a local Chicago political race and his opponent, Chester Manning, played by Brian Tyree Henry, is trying to unseat him. On the surface, Chester Manning seems like quite the standout gentleman, but he's the one who Liam Neeson's gang stole from and in private he is rather intimidating and manipulative. Running along as his sidekick in getting what he wants is Daniel Kaluuya's character. Daniel Kaluuya doesn't have much depth to him in the movie. He's just kinda messed up and evil, but he does a dang good job at it. Every time he's on screen, he just has an uncomfortable presence to him that makes you convinced whoever is in the room with him is going to die unless they meet his demands. This shows a bit of versatility with Daniel Kaluuya as he went from harmless victim in "Get Out" to crazy villain in "Widows," doing a solid job at both. So yeah, with these figures lurking around, I felt it was perfectly reasonable for Viola Davis, who is a bit of a morally ambiguous character herself, to get desperate and try to do what it takes to stay alive.

Propelling all of this forward are a handful of solid performances by our lead ladies, Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo. Starting off with Viola Davis, she puts on her Amanda Waller persona in this movie, which she pulled off quite convincingly in "Suicide Squad." She's far from being a psychotic criminal, but she's also not a perfect angel as she remained married to Liam Neeson despite him being the leader of the initial heist gang. She claimed innocence from all of that at the time, but she also didn't stop him or really condemn him. So when she's threatened if she doesn't get the $2 million real quick, it doesn't take much effort to decide to follow in her husband's footsteps. She plays a rough, intimidating leader as she chooses to recruit these other widows and lead them through this and she pulls this off really well. Michelle Rodriguez is Michelle Rodriguez in this movie. That's the best way to describe her. I learned to really like her via "LOST" and the many "Fast and Furious" movies, so I enjoyed her character. It's the same one she always plays, but that was fine for me. But Elizabeth Debicki was the fun one. She seems the most unsure of the bunch. The most likely to fail. But then she surprised by being a brutal, heavy-hitter when it was least expected.

The final character in the gang is Cynthia Erivo. She's actually not a widow. In fact, the fourth widow of the original bunch wasn't recruited by Viola Davis when it was learned that she had a newborn. So it was going to be the three of them. But Cynthia Erivo is Michelle Rodriguez's babysiter and she's recruited last second and winds up being the glue that holds them together with her quickness and speed. She might be more of an afterthought in terms of character progression, but she's a fun addition. Together all four of these ladies provide a great balance. I found myself really wanting them to succeed, but being legitimately nervous about their chances in this. In terms of the rest of the cast, I kinda laugh at the fact that there are so many huge names in this movie because a good portion of them add very little to the film. We have some of the greatest actors in the business playing small roles that could've been played by lesser known actors, but I think the reason for all this was advertising purposes and awards bait rather than actually needing all of them. It didn't negatively effect the movie for me. But I did find it a bit unnecessary. That honestly might be the biggest complaint I have of the movie, which is saying a lot about the quality of the film.

So yeah, when it comes to heist films, I generally find myself enjoying them, but the formula has been done so much that I think we've worn the genre out. That may be why I was negative on "Ocean's 8." There was zero creativity. Zero originality. I find myself bored and uninterested despite the fact that the ladies in the movie were having the time of their lives. And that's why I loved "Widows." I didn't even know it was a heist film until the buzz started to come alive a few weeks before its release. Going in expecting that, I find myself surprisingly invested because of the intensity and uncertainty that it brought to the genre. It took a genre that has become so predictable and made me question how everything was going to turn out, thus providing plenty of surprises along the way. I mean, the second half of this movie is a who different movie review that I refuse to even get into, but the basic word is that if we're going to do another heist film, let's dig a little deeper and come up with something that can add a bit of spice and creativity to genre and that's exactly what "Widows" does. I'm a bit sad that it's not doing well at the box office and isn't getting much awards buzz, but hopefully this will be a movie that will be remembered down the road. I'm going to give "Widows" a 9/10.

Ralph Breaks the Internet Review

It's hard for me to believe that "Wreck-It Ralph" was released six years ago. It seems just like a year or two ago when it lost best animated feature to "Brave" at the Oscars. I guess when you have a movie that memorable, it lasts a lot longer in your brain. It's funny how time works like that. Because, on the other hand, "Brave" seems like it came out forever ago because it just wasn't that memorable. Anyways, another thing that might be hard for people to believe, but something that I enjoy pointing out, is that "Ralph Breaks the Internet" is really only the second sequel that Disney's main branch of animation, that being Walt Disney Animation Studios, has ever done. The first one was "The Rescuers Down Under" in 1990 and that's often seen as being better than "The Rescuers." All the other awful animated sequels that you mostly would like to forget? Yeah, those come from DisneyToon, Disney's direct-to-DVD branch of animation. So when people say they aren't excited for "Ralph Breaks the Internet" or next year's "Frozen 2" because of Disney's poor track record with animated sequels, well, that's not exactly a fair statement. This is actually fairly new grounds for Disney and in this case, they owned it. You can call them two for two with their animated sequels.

I know I'm late with this review, but I was busy with Thanksgiving this past week and had no time to type my review. So you're getting it a week late. In "Ralph Breaks the Internet" we again return to our beloved arcade, which is understandably becoming a bit run down as it's hard for arcades to compete with modern gaming. Just like it's been six years since the first movie came out, the events in this movie take place six years later in this fictional universe. Ralph is absolutely loving life. He gets to work at his game during the day and hang out with his best friend Vanellope all night. However, Vanellope is getting a bit restless because she's getting a bit bored with doing the same thing over and over in her game. When Ralph tries to help her out by spicing her track up a bit, it leads to the steering wheel in her game breaking. Because of the fact that the arcade just isn't making that much money, the arcade owner decides it's time to retire her game of Sugar Rush because the price it would cost to fix it is more than the game makes in a year. This leads to Vanellope feeling even more insecure about things. So in order to help his friend, Ralph comes up with a plan for them to head off to the internet via the new WiFi router that was just installed in order to find the new part.

What I really appreciate with this movie is the creativity with this idea. This feels like a sequel that was made because someone came up with a clever idea as to what they could do next rather than it being the other way around, that being Disney commissioning a sequel because the first made money, causing filmmakers to then figure out what to do next. Supporting this idea in my brain is the fact that in Disney's modern animation renaissance that began with "Tangled" in 2010, "Wreck-It Ralph" is actually their lowest grossing movie besides the 2011 "Winnie the Pooh," which wasn't pushed heavily as a tent-pole release. At the domestic box office, "Wreck-It Ralph" made $189 million, which is less than "Tangled" ($200 million), "Big Hero 6" ($222 million), "Moana" ($248 million), "Zootopia" ($341 million) and "Frozen" ($400 million). So on financial terms, it makes the least sense to do a "Wreck-It Ralph" sequel. But yet here we are. And as I said, I think that's because they came up with a great idea with Ralph and Vanellope heading off to the world of the internet, presenting a whole lot of fun avenues to go down. Because of this, the movie feels fresh and unique. I enjoyed the fact that this was a completely different movie than "Wreck-It Ralph."

In regards to specifics, I think what made "Wreck-It Ralph" so fun was that the movie had a blast with all of its retro arcade game references. If you're a gamer, especially when it comes to classic 80's and 90's video games, chance are that "Wreck-It Ralph" was a real treat. In a similar manner, but with different content, "Ralph Breaks the Internet" has a lot of fun in its internet world. The attention to detail is pretty great as there's so many internet related jokes and references that are pure gold. A lot of them are direct and in your face, like them wandering through eBay land or Vanellope running around through Oh My Disney, but what makes this a lot of fun are all the small details scattered throughout in the background or things that are shown quickly in passing. It was just a joy and you could tell that the animators had a lot of fun throwing in as many internet-related references as they could. In doing so, the movie manages to connect with a wide range of audience members. The kids are going to have a lot of with this world and the characters, but a good portion of the movie's references are going to fly right over their heads. In contrast, adults may facepalm at some of the childish humor, but will admire the movie's details and creativity with said references.

In this manner, the movie is able to strike a good balance in a way that reminded me a bit of "Inside Out." Yes, a lot of the emotion characters are a lot of fun for the kids in that movie and it's one that they'll certainly enjoy. But there's a lot of clean humor in "Inside Out" catered directly towards adults that make the movie genius. Now if I'm going to address the giant elephant in the room, the other obvious comparison to "Ralph Breaks the Internet" is to "The Emoji Movie," the latter of which I still claim is a horrendous abomination. Yet both movies' premises are quite similar. What's the difference? Well, a lot. In fact, the only similarity in both movies is the idea of the internet. "The Emoji Movie" is loaded with characters you don't care about out, a stupid overall story arc, humor that just isn't funny at all, and themes that are actually bad for kids if you think about it. Nothing works in that movie and it is the epitome of everything wrong with Hollywood. Meanwhile, "Ralph Breaks the Internet" reunites us with lovely characters that we do care about, sends them on an incredible journey, has deep themes that make you tear up, and has a whole ton of fun with its internet-related humor that's actually clever and genius. It's a powerful movie for kids.

In regards to said journey and themes, this is where the movie caught me off guard. I expected to have fun with its internet-related humor. I relished at the opportunity of diving into the world of Oh My Disney because there was so many things that could be done there. But I had no idea what the story of the movie was going to be because the movie did a great job of not revealing that. At least not in the initial trailers. The story that remains hidden from the advertisement is one related to friendship. As the movie sets up at the beginning, Ralph is perfectly content with the life that he is living. Vanellope is not. She enjoys her game and she enjoys racing, but there's something missing in her life that she can't quite put her finger on. I don't want to dive into too many details on how this turns out, but the story here is one of self-discovery. Vanellope is trying to search for her dream and for what her place in the world is. She slowly starts to realize that her dreams and aspirations may be quite different than Ralph's, so the two of them have to reconcile their friendship to figure out what each of them wants to do. Sometimes life takes best friends in different directions and that's perfectly OK. I think that's a powerful message for kids as well as one that will connect with adults.

As the movie explored this, the Disney magic was powerful. When I saw "Wreck-It Ralph" back in the day, my initial reaction was that it felt very much like a Pixar movie, which was funny because "Brave," which was Pixar, felt much more like a Disney movie. That's not the case with "Ralph Breaks the Internet." This felt like pure Disney and the Disney themes and atmosphere were quite strong. On that note, I do feel obligated to talk about the Disney princesses in the movie. Their inclusion was a heavy part of the advertising and I totally understand why. If you have all the Disney princesses in your movie, it's a great selling point. But that extended scene in the trailer comprises about 30 percent of their screen time in the entire, which makes me wish that it was more of a surprise. Now there's more to that scene that the trailer doesn't show and they have more involvement in other parts of the movie that I think were super clever and hilarious, but they're not a huge part of the movie. In fact, I thought we were going to spend most of the movie in the Oh My Disney section of the internet. But we didn't. We spend more time in the eBay land, the discount YouTube land, and the new racing game they stumble on. Gal Gadot's character is more prominent than any Disney princess.

As far as negatives go, I hate to be a Debbie Downer is such a delightful movie, but the movie does take a while to get going. We spent a lot more time in the arcade at the beginning than I thought we were going to. It takes a while for them to get to the internet. And when we get to the internet, it also takes a while for me to figure out what the actual plot was outside them looking for a new part to Vanellope's game. There's a lot of emotion and a lot of power in this movie, but it requires a bit of patience to get there. I've actually seen the movie twice now, once with a friend on the night it debuted and once on Thanksgiving morning with a crowd of young people. Now if you ask a kid what they thought of the movie, they're not going to dive into some great analysis of what they thought. They're just going to say they loved it and call that good. But if you watch them watching the movie, you can get clues as to how much they are enjoying the movie and the first half of the movie had a lot of restless kids in the theater, so it wasn't just me. The theater got a bit noisy as the kids were running out of patience while watching the film. It's also worth noting that there are certain parts of the movie that are a bit scary for kids, so be aware of that if your kids get scared easily.

That aside, the movie as a whole is mostly a delight. With how powerful the second half of the movie is, you're going to walk out of the theater on a powerful emotional high, perhaps having forgotten about any flaws the movie has getting started. And your kids are going to have so much fun in the end that they'll forget that they were a little bored and restless with the beginning. Thus I have positive feelings towards this movie with a very high recommendation that makes me troubled in my mind in regards to whether I liked this movie or "Incredibles 2" more. But the picky critic in me has to point out that the movie as a whole isn't quite as sharp as the original and that's OK, so there's your answer as to which "Wreck-It Ralph" movie is better. When I put together my ranking of all the Disney animated movies, "Wreck-It Ralph" made it somewhere in the top 15. I have no idea where "Ralph Breaks the Internet" will be on that list, but it won't be nearly as high. That said, the two movies are quite different and can be enjoyed for different reasons. That also means if you didn't like "Wreck-It Ralph," there's a chance that this movie might win you over, but I might be the wrong person to ask there since I loved "Wreck-It Ralph." That said, I'm still going to give "Ralph Breaks the Internet" a 9/10.

Creed II Review

That would be "Creed 2," not "Creed 11," since the Rocky franchise uses roman numerals with their sequels. Although we're not too far away from the 11th movie in this franchise as "Creed II" is the eighth movie in a franchise that I've thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, the Rocky movies are some of my Dad's favorites, so I have some amazing memories growing up watching the Rocky movies with my Dad and other siblings. "Rocky" is a classic. "Rocky II" is just as good, if not better. "Rocky III" is super cheesy, but a lot of fun. "Rocky IV" packs in some heavy emotion. I haven't actually seen "Rocky V." We didn't watch it growing up because it was PG-13 instead of PG. I've always heard it wasn't worth it anyways, so I've never bothered. "Rocky Balboa" as the sixth film is surprisingly emotional and extremely underrated. So yeah, a solid series. I wasn't sure what to expect with "Creed," but was mostly excited to see Rocky back again. Yet I was shocked to discover it was one of the best ones in the franchise, up there with "Rocky" and "Rocky II." With how successful it was across the board, I knew it meant that a "Creed II" was on our way and I was ready to welcome it with open arms. Now that it's here, I'm delighted to report that this is another solid entry in this franchise.

In regards to the plot of the film, there's not a whole you can do when you're on the eighth movie in a boxing franchise, yet somehow "Creed II" managed to strike gold with its premise, tying it directly into "Rocky IV." As a recap, "Rocky IV" is the movie where Dolph Lundgreen's Ivan Drago kills Apollo Creed, Rocky's opponent in the first two movies and friend in the third movie, in a boxing match at the beginning of the film. Rocky then has to train hard to get revenge against Drago, which he does at the end of the film. "Creed" is a movie that follows the emergence of Adonis Creed, son of Apollo Creed, as he tries to emerge out of the shadow of his legendary father to create his own legacy. With Adonis having grabbed the attention of the world at the end of "Creed," it felt like the natural progression of things to bring Ivan Drago back into the picture for "Creed II." Of course Ivan Drago is too old to fight on his own in this movie, but he has his son Victor Drago trained and ready to beat Adonis, bringing glory back to the Drago name after Rocky humiliated Ivan years later. So the moment Adonis is declared world champion, the Dragos come out of the woodwork to challenge him to a fight. Victor vs. Adonis. Drago vs. Creed. Now Adonis needs to make up his mind in regards to what to do.

What made "Creed" such a good movie is that it perfectly followed the formula of "Rocky" by being a character piece first and foremost. It was much more than just another boxing movie with fun boxing matches. The fact that "Creed II" also follows that format is why it's also successful in my eyes. Of course the easy answer in this is for Adonis to fight Victor and send the Dragos back to the shadows. But when you dive beneath the surface, this is a lot more complex than that. First of all, Victor is a lot bigger than Adonis, which means Adonis has to figure out a way to fight smart because he's not going to win by brute strength. If he runs into the ring with his emotions getting the better of him because the Dragos are the reason why he never knew his father, the match isn't going to turn out so well for him. Then there's the obvious fact that Adonis' father was killed in a very similar match, adding some real stakes to this. Topping it all off, Adonis is now in a relationship with Bianca, his girlfriend turned fiancee in this movie, and she is pregnant with their child. Yes, he can avenge his father's death, but in doing so, he risks doing to his young family what his father did to his. Leave them without a husband and father. So as you can imagine, the emotions are running strong in this one with all parties involved.

Powering this movie forward are a whole string of brilliant performances, lead once again by Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed. Jordan has been on the scene for quite some time now with roles in the "Friday Night Lights" TV series and "Chronicle" in 2012 being some early examples. But "Fruitvale Station" in 2013 is where he really grabbed a lot of people's attention, which most certainly led to him being cast in the lead role in "Creed," given that both movies were directed by Ryan Coogler. And well, pun very much intended, but he delivered a knock-out performance in "Creed," one that should've given him an Oscar nomination. This year he's made an even bigger name for himself as gave what some have called a performance for the ages as he starred as Erik Killmonger in "Black Panther," a performance that could give him his first Oscar nomination depending on how much the Oscars love "Black Panther" this year. So yeah, the guy can definitely act. And he once again gives his all to this role, making me believe that he's a prolific boxer who deserves his spot next to Rocky Balboa in this franchise. When the movie did the sports movie trope of showing the Sports Center guys, I bought into the idea that I was legitimately watching Sports Center rather than it feeling forced.

Of course there's a lot of great supporting actors holding Michael B. Jordan up so that he's not carrying this movie by himself. The most obvious one here is Sylvester Stallone returning as Rocky, which is always good to see. In "Creed," Stallone gave potentially his best performance yet as the iconic character, which still makes me mad that the Oscars gave the best supporting actor award to Mark Rylance instead, despite Stallone practically sweeping the rest of the awards season in that category. In "Creed II," Stallone's role isn't quite as emotionally heavy, thus on Oscar nomination is probably not on his way and I'm fine with that. But he still owns it as this character. It's been 40 years since he first stepped into this role and it was once again great to see this legacy of his continue. Surprisingly, though, if there was one actor in this movie who deserves a supporting actor nomination, I would contend it's Dolph Lundgreen as Ivan Drago. He was one of Rocky's most cold-hearted opponents and you want to hate him, but they give him a ton of depth in this movie that actually causes you to feel for the guy. You kinda want his son to go get the win because of it, which makes this a very conflicted fight even though Victor still acts like a stuck-up jerk.

I think the movie's biggest flaw is that Ryan Coogler's absence is very much felt. My guess is that he was too distracted with his "Black Panther" movie to come direct "Creed II," so they tapped Steven Caple Jr. to direct the movie. I'm not sure where or how they found this guy since the only other feature-length film he's directed is a 2016 movie called "The Land," which only had a max of 13 theaters, making $43,756 overall at the domestic box office. And I suppose Caple Jr. does a competent job. He proved to me that he was worthy of directing the movie. But the movie as a whole is just not as sharp as "Creed." It's a bit rough around the edges and takes a long time to get going. I feel if Coogler had returned, he could've smoothed things out quite a bit and made for a more enjoyable ride. The other big flaw I had was with the soundtrack. It was a very hip-hop heavy soundtrack. And I get it. It's a product of its time. I bought into the idea that Creed himself would probably be listening to this type of music. So it fit. It's just that hip-hop doesn't motivate me personally, so when the training montages used hip-hop to pump me up, I wasn't very pumped up. However, when the traditional Rocky soundtrack shows up, I think I squealed a bit in my seat. That's one of my all-time favorite movie soundtracks.

That said, the movie as a whole was still very enjoyable. Did it do anything particularly new? No. But in this case I don't think it needed to. Since I watched this the day after Thanksgiving, the comparison that I thought off was a Thanksgiving dinner. When I sit down for a Thanksgiving dinner, which is one of my favorite meals of the year, I don't need something new or different. In fact, I need my turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes on my plate or I'm going to feel underwhelmed. It's the same thing with a Rocky movie. I need the drama at the beginning to set up an end fight. I need the main character to fall a bit. I need him to find the motivation to fight. I need an epic training montage. I need an epic final battle with the classic soundtrack thrown somewhere in there. If the movie went away from any of that, I would be disappointed. So yeah, I knew exactly where this movie was going and I wasn't surprised by the final result, but that's what made me so happy. It included all the elements that I wanted. But not just that, it handled those elements with care and precision to deliver a well-crafted Rocky movie. There is a lot more specific details that I could dive into, but for now I'll let you discover those on your own. "Creed II" is a worthy successor and I'm going to give it an 8/10.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review

It's time once again to dive into the wonderful wizarding world of, well, not Harry Potter this time around, but Newt Scamander and the rest of the people around in the 1920's, just over 50 years before the dreadful day when Lord Voldemort killed Harry's parents. "The Crimes of Grindelwald" is now our 10th movie in this franchise, which is a fun milestone. Like most people who call themselves millennials, "Harry Potter" was a huge part of my growing up years and is still important to me this day. As far as the books go, I was eight years old when "The Sorcerer's Stone" was released in 1997 and had just graduated high school a few months before "The Deathly Hallows" was released in 2007. Tack on the movies beginning in 2001 when I was 12 years old and finishing (with the original series that is) in 2011 when I was 22 years old. I'm even in the same age range as Daniel Radcliffe (born in 1989), Emma Watson (born in 1990) and Rupert Grint (born in 1988). So there's been no franchise that's been this important to me as I've spent most of my life looking forward to the next book or the next movie. So of course "The Crimes of Grindelwald" was one of my most anticipated movies of 2018. This was my franchise and I was excited to go back and explore it some more.

The 40 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes? Yeah, I didn't care. That should've been a warning sign to me. But it wasn't. The 40-70 percent range is what I call mixed reviews. Even though the first "Fantastic Beasts" wound up as positive on the tomatometer, that one had very mixed reactions among fans and I wound up on the positive side there. In fact, I thought "Fantastic Beasts" was a clever way to get us all back into the franchise. Back in 2011, after seeing "The Deathly Hallows - Part 2" in theaters, I was emotionally crushed because I felt this part of my life was coming to a close. I didn't know how to react to the idea of not having something Harry Potter related to look forward to. Thus after a five year wait, I was relieved when said chapter wasn't actually ending. There was still more movies to look forward to. Granted, I was initially worried as to how they were going to turn a Harry Potter textbook into a movie, but it turns out the beasts themselves weren't the real focus here. The focus was on what was happening in the wizarding world when Newt Scamander, author of said textbook, was a young man. J.K. Rowling has said she's been attached to this character for a while and now she's been excited to finally tell his stories to the world. I was totally on board with this.

Sure, "Fantastic Beasts" was far from a perfect film. I think the biggest problem is that the storyline in the movie as a whole isn't super memorable and not all of the characters connected as well with me as our main Harry Potter saga. But it was an excellent introduction to this new generation of movies in the wizarding world. The most exciting thing that the movie brought to the table is the promise for the future by diving into the story of Grindelwald. I remember Johnny Depp as Grindelwald was rumored to show up eventually, which is why I was taken by surprise when Colin Farrell's character ended up being Depp's Grindelwald in disguise. Yeah, I just spoiled that first movie for you, but I kinda had to in order to talk about this sequel because this second movie is about the rise of Grindelwald, as the title suggests. Ever since the seventh book, I've found this story to be rather fascinating. Dumbledore and Grindelwald were childhood friends until a huge falling out turned them into enemies. Grindelwald then experiments in the dark arts and becomes a powerful dark wizard, second only to Voldemort in power, until he was defeated by Dumbledore in 1945. Well, we're in 1927 in this movie and I was excited to see the beginning of this rise to power.

Which is why I found this movie to be so disappointing. I was extremely excited for this movie and I was quite bullish when it came to the reaction. If "Fantastic Beasts" was a solid intro to this universe, "The Crimes of Grindelwald" had the potential to blossom into a grand and glorious chapter of the wizarding world, building on what that first movie set up. And, well, I still have hope that the future of this franchise will be great. But that's the thing. The potential has not yet been reached. Instead of blossoming into something beautiful, this second chapter sputtered out and dragged it's feet, making a lot of confusing and baffling choices along the way. Thus I've been greatly troubled in my mind over the last day or so as I have no idea what to do with this. To be fair, though, this is not a bad movie. In fact, there's a skeleton of something great with some phenomenal performances holding this up. Leading the way with these performances are the two big arch rivals, Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Jude Law plays a young Dumbledore and he really captures the spirit of what makes Dumbledore so great. Standing opposite of him, Johnny Depp genuinely does a great job as the sinister and cunning Grindelwald. This is the beginnings of something great that I hope really pays off.

However, despite pulling off great performances, these two really aren't given much to do here. Dumbledore is there to provide support and have some excellent conversations with our characters. But he's not an integral part of this plot. He's there as a tease for what we could be in store for later. And Grindelwald has an excellent opening sequences and a really powerful final sequence, but in between all that he's a character in the shadows, lurking around with his two partners as they quietly wreak havoc. And I'm not even sure what the "crimes" are that the title is referring to. This is actually the first time in the entire Potterverse that the title hasn't made a whole lot sense. Carrying this movie for most of it is in fact Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander. I really enjoy this character. Newt is a very socially awkward individual who has a great moral compass, yet has no desire to get involved in anything. But he's thrown into this almost against his will, this time by Dumbledore as Dumbledore commissions Newt to go stop Grindelwald in Paris because Dumbledore can't do it himself. So after Grindelwald escapes, Newt is off to Paris, which I think was a solid idea after an intense opening. I was ready for some sort of big conflict as Newt tried to spoil Grindelwald's plans.

Yet that's where the movie started to slip away from me. I was waiting for something to happen, but all I got was an overabundance of characters all doing things that I really wasn't invested in. And speaking of this overabundance of characters, the movie really tested my brain power on who they all were. Despite being a Potter fan for the majority of my life and being well-versed in the lore, I had the haunting feeling while watching that I forgot to do my homework. It's like going into a test, looking at the questions and being filled with dread because you didn't study hard enough or you studied the wrong material. I should've re-watched the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie because I quickly realized that I forgot about who most of the characters were in that movie. I knew Newt Scamander. I knew Jacob Kowalski. I vaguely remember Queenie and Tina Goldstein. And I obviously knew Grindelwald. That's about it as concerning returning characters. With all the other people, as they came on the screen, I was doing my best to remember who they were while keeping track of what they were doing in this movie. Plus there's a whole bunch of new characters I had to learn and several that I completely forgot existed. All of this unfortunately started to hurt my brain.

Then we have the actual plot. Or, well, the main plot that was scattered throughout all of the wandering side plots. What that boils down to is that everyone is searching for Credence, a character who I embarrassingly have to admit that I completely forgot about. The movie made it loud and clear that he was extremely important as Grindelwald was desperately searching for him while a lot of the others were I believe were trying to stop Grindelwald from finding him. Thus the title of this movie could've been called "Fantastic Beasts: The Search for Credence." Or better yet, since the fantastic beasts are even less important to this movie's plot than they were in the first movie, we might as well just call it "Newt Scamander and the Search for Credence." Yet despite the movie bashing over our heads that Credence was extremely important, the movie refused to tell us why. All we know on Credence's side of things is that he has no idea who he is and he really wants to know why. OK, so that means we're in for a big reveal of some sorts, but the movie decided to drag that on for as long as humanly possibly instead of simply revealing it towards the beginning or middle and spending the rest of the movie making said reveal make sense, thus giving us an actual story to care about.

Maybe it's because I've been watching too much of the Arrowverse, but this style of mystery box reveal where they string you along for way too long has really gotten under my nerves. In "The Flash" season 3, around 90 percent of the drama was the mystery of who the masked Savitar was. They didn't reveal the identity until the very end of the season because they apparently thought it was a fun game to play with viewers. I hated it. In "Arrow" season 4, the started out revealing that a main character was going to die this season, but it was apparent that the writers had no idea who it was when they started the season. They just wanted to play that game with their viewers. When it was finally revealed towards the end of the season, I felt like throwing my computer at a wall because I was upset that they played that game with me for so long and said reveal wasn't even worth it. My feelings here were similar. "The Crimes of Grindelwald," in essence, is a movie that straps you in like a donkey and dangles a carrot in front of you the whole film, forcing you to follow it, but not letting you eat it until the journey is over. Much like "Arrow" season 4, when said reveal finally happens, it winds up being extremely confusing as it makes absolutely no sense at all.

Instead of walking out of the theater feeling extremely satisfied with another journey into the wizarding world, I walked out with a laundry list of questions for J.K. Rowling, who did indeed write the screenplay for this movie. Even if they all end up making sense, this still leaves us in the position of this movie only existing to set up future movies. When it comes to the Harry Potter books themselves, two of my favorite books are "The Prisoner of Azkaban" and "The Goblet of Fire" because the individual stories in those books are so interesting and entertaining. In both situations, but especially in "The Goblet of Fire," J.K. Rowling managed to progress the plot of the whole series forward while also providing a story that stands well on its own. That's what a Potterverse book or movie SHOULD do. So the fact that "The Crimes of Grindelwald" only exists to set up drama in future movies is extremely disappointing in its own right. Thus it could be compared to my least favorite book, "The Half-Blood Prince," which I would argue only exists to build the bridge between the first five books and the grand finale. But even that book had great moments in it. "The Crimes of Grindelwald" is extremely lacking in interesting content outside a thrilling beginning and final battle.

On top of that underwhelming structure to this movie, there is a huge laundry list of other questions that J.K. Rowling sparked in my brain. It was obvious that she relied heavily on Easter eggs from the Potterverse to please fans when a lot of those Easter eggs didn't provide anything worthwhile to the plot. And there's several of these that made me wonder if J.K. Rowling fact-checked her own books to make sure what she was doing made sense because it doesn't seem like she did. I can't dive into all of these due to spoilers, but one example that I think is safe to bring up is the inclusion of Professor McGonagall, who is indeed a professor at Hogwarts in this movie. What's the problem with that? Well, if you dive into her story, or look up her Wikia, it can solidly be determined that she was born in 1935. Yet this movie takes place in 1927. Not only that, she's also still a professor during flashbacks to the early 1900's. See the problem there? It sadly reminded me a lot of George Lucas' Star Wars prequels. In the original trilogy, Leia says she remembers her mother. But in the prequels, Padme dies giving birth to Luke and Leia. Whoops! You forgot about that detail Mr. Lucas. There's several examples like this in both the Star Wars prequels and "The Crimes of Grindelwald."

Then we have characters included here like Nagini and Nicholas Flamel. There's no continuity errors with them, but their inclusion in the movie is completely pointless. And no, I don't consider bringing up either character a spoiler because they are both in the trailer and are introduced fairly early in the movie. With Nagini, we learn that she was a human who was doomed to be permanently turned into a snake. I don't know why we needed to learn that. All that it accomplishes is making Nagini's story in the Potter books a bit disturbing when she eats a human being and kinda depressing when Neville decapitates her. What does she do in this movie? Nothing. She's pointless. Maybe she'll have use in the future, but at this point in time her inclusion in the story is solely to make fans of the books happy. Same goes with Nicholas Flamel. Yeah, it was kinda cool to see him on the big screen for the first time. But does his character do anything to progress the plot forward? No. He has absolutely no purpose in the film. J.K. Rowling simply decided to bring characters in for fan recognition rather than actually giving them something to do. This whole thing made me feel like she should've been attached to this movie as a consultant rather being the one who wrote the screenplay.

So how do I grade this? This isn't a question that I should be this troubled over because the grade shouldn't be what matters here. But yet it has been. Due to all of these complaints that I've had, there's a part of me that's wanted to completely rip into this movie, calling it the worst Harry Potter film in the whole franchise and one of the worst movies of 2018. But then there's the other part of me that has quietly called out, reminding me that there are a lot of elements that I enjoyed. Johnny Depp as Grindelwald was excellent. He gets a great scene at the beginning and an even better one at the end. Jude Law as Dumbledore was an inspired casting choice. The returning cast members from the previous film also gave it their all, especially Eddie Redmayne as Newt. He's an excellent character and he has some great support around him. And yes it is true that there's a chance that my opinion could improve if I go back and watch the first movie, then re-watch this one. There's also a possibility that some questions could be answered in future movies that will ease my troubled mind, causing this movie to get better in hindsight. But there's also the chance that the exact opposite happens, so I don't know what to do. For now I'll split the difference and give this a 6/10.

Overlord Review

It's been a bit of a rough November for me in terms of my enjoyment of films that I've seen thus far. I made sure to hit all three of the big ones that were released, "Bohemian Rhapsody," "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" and "The Grinch," and they were all duds. So when the giant blockbusters aren't working out, what do you do? You turn to the small films to get a win. So that's what I did. I suppose it's not completely accurate to call "Overlord" a small film, per se. It's not one of these independent/art house films vying for Oscar attention. Rather it's more like a medium-level film that didn't get quite as much attention as it deserved and will probably get overlooked even more over the next several days with the likes of "The Crimes of Grindelwald," "Ralph Breaks the Internet" and "Creed II" being released. But such is life. I'll do my best to vie for the movie. And if no one cares and no one reads this review, then so be it. As I said, I mainly went into this movie for selfish reasons. I wanted a win with a November movie, so I went and saw "Overlord" and I got a win. And that's all that really matters, right? And it actually did a little better at the box office than I thought it would, so perhaps there are a few of you out there that had this on your radar. If so, check it out.

Before I tell you what this movie is all about, I first want to tell you what this movie is NOT. That's a bit of a unique route to take for a movie description, but in this case it makes sense. First and foremost, this is NOT a "Cloverfield" film. "10 Cloverfield Lane" wasn't initially a "Cloverfield" film until it became one later in production. "A Quiet Place" was ALMOST a "Cloverfield" before they smartly decided against it. Then we have Netflix's "The Cloverfield Paradox" which is a lit bit of a lot of things. So given all that history, and the general secrecy regarding the "Cloverfield" franchise, everyone assumed this was going to be another "Cloverfield" movie since it was a J.J. Abrams production with his Bad Robot company. People thought maybe this would tell more of the origins of the "Cloverfield" aliens since this was set in World War II. But no, J.J. specifically came out earlier in the year to clarify that this was it's own thing without having anything to do with the "Cloverfield" franchise. And no, that wasn't a smoke screen because this doesn't secretly become a "Cloverfield" movie at the end. Granted, at this point I wouldn't put that past the "Cloverfield" franchise, but that's not what happens. It's its own movie, which in this case I think is an excellent thing.

Another important thing to note is that this movie really isn't a zombie movie and that's important to know because it's been heavily advertised as one. All the trailers and posters have been heavily pushing it is a Nazi zombie movie, which is unfortunate because now I feel that a lot of people are walking out of the theater disappointed because they went into the movie expecting a "World War Z" type of movie, but set in World War II. That's not really what this movie is. If Paramount hadn't falsely advertised it as such, I may not have even brought up that element of the movie in my review, leaving it as a third act surprise. But nevertheless my hand has been forced as I have to discuss it. There are zombies in this movie. But there's only a few of them that play a big role and those characters are the surprise that the movie builds up to. What this movie IS is a straight-up war movie. There's a paratrooper squad who are sent on a mission to destroy a German radio tower in an old church on the day before D-Day so that the Allied invasion of Normandy can be successful. Obviously this is a fictional story, but it's a fun theoretical war story that plays with the idea of the Nazis being up to some sort of secret mission.

Obviously, as I've explained, the secret Nazi mission was them experimenting with the dead to bring them back to life. And yeah, they could've done a whole lot more with this if they were aiming to do a straight up B-film involving an army of Nazi zombies during World War II, but they decided to take a realistic approach to the idea and present it in a way that this could've been something that actually happened. I found that to be a clever approach and thus I found myself to be super invested in the story leading up to it rather than simply sitting and waiting for the movie to commit to an all-out B-movie. And I think if you go into the movie expecting a war film rather than a zombie, I think there's a lot that you can take in because this is a really intense movie right from the get go. The movie wastes no time introducing characters or giving you a detailed backstory on how they got to the point where they are. Rather, the movie begins with them all strapped in on their plane, flying through the mass hysteria that was the World War II sky at night. As they fly, we get some brief exposition on what it is they are planning on doing, but at this point you aren't even sure which characters you're supposed to be following and if you're not paying close enough attention, you might miss the whole thing with all the loud noise around them before their plane gets hit and causes them to crash.

I thought that introduction to the movie was a great way to set the tone for what we were about to get ourselves into, which was a rather intense war film. After their plane blows up, you begin to know who the main characters of the film are by who actually survives. It's at this point that the movie takes the time to slowly introduce you to who these people are by their interactions among themselves as they carefully weave their way through the battlefield in order to figure out how exactly they're going to finish their mission despite the fact that most of them just blew up. And I found myself to be surprisingly invested in all of these characters. They had a good team dynamic that slowly grew over time. At first they feel like a bunch of strangers who were forced into this situation and have to deal with each other. The glue that holds them together initially is the soldier who is the highest rank among that have survived. He's kinda leading them around in the dark, both literally and figuratively, while forcing them to stick together and keep focused on what it is they're supposed to be doing. Naturally there's a whole lot of tension and there's one or two of them that you wish would've been a war casualty, but such is not the case and they are forced to work together.

I think what helped this bond for me is that I didn't recognize any of the cast while watching the movie. Several of them looked super familiar, but it wasn't until I went over to IMDb afterwards that I figured out where I recognized them from. This meant that while I was watching the film, I was able to see them as characters in the movie rather than actors playing the characters. I think they all did a great job, especially the two characters who end up being the main two characters, Jovan Adepo as Boyce and Wyatt Russell as Ford. Wyatt Russell is the one whose in charge as the highest ranking official while Jovan Adepo is the one who barely feels like he belongs as he's knew to this whole soldier thing. The bond between the two of them because rather strong by the end of the film, giving us characters arcs that really sold me. The rest of the gang as more supporting characters also had some solid side-arcs intertwined with the main two, giving us a good camaraderie as a whole that led to a solid movie that build rather well. The fact that I cared about all of these characters made the horrors of war even more intense, especially as the team got closer to infiltrating this radio tower. It's inside this radio tower that the movie successfully transitions into a solid horror film.

Unfortunately you already know the secret there because the movie's advertising forced me to discuss the movie's secrets. As the movie gets more and more intense, the movie also gets more and more gross, thus if you don't have a good stomach for violence and gore, you might want to stay away from this because nothing is held back. Specifically, all the experiments on the dead and the dying are quite the sight to behold, to put it lightly. It might get a bit gratuitous at times, but it also does a great job of setting the tone of the second half of the film. This was already set pretty well with the war aspect of the film. Their plane getting bombed down at the beginning was intense. Them wandering around in the dark was intense. As they were able to find a hiding spot thanks to certain new characters who are introduced, it gets intense as certain Nazis get closer to discovering them. And then to top it all off, we have these horrific experiments that make your stomach churn. This is quite the excellent build up that makes you brace for the absolute worst as you know the movie is not going to hold back once you finally get to the moments that most people were waiting for the second they walked into the theater. And without saying too much, that final act of the movie is insane.

In summary, this could be a mixed bag for people, depending on what you are expecting going in. If all you want is a Nazi zombie B-movie, you're going to spend most of the movie bored with the fact that this tries to be a real movie, then probably doesn't give you what you came for with the final act. However, if you go in expecting a war movie, I think you'll be rather pleased as this is a really intense war film right from the very beginning that successfully gives me everything that I usually want when I go into a war film. There's a lot of war action. A lot of intense battlefield moments. A lot of suspense with characters hiding from the enemy. There's a good team of characters who have to learn and grow together in order to successfully accomplish the mission that they were assigned from the beginning. And then we get rewarded with a clever twist at the end that the Nazis were doing a lot of crazy, underground experiments with the dead and dying soldiers from both sides. All of this builds up to a final act that is extremely rewarding. I left the theater on a huge high after being solidly entertained by this war thriller sprinkled with zombie horror. This is certainly the best film of November so far and could be one of the many great highlights of 2018. I'll give "Overlord" a 9/10.