I think this is one of the strangest product placement movies I’ve seen in a while considering all the murder and mayhem that results from the group of idiots that star in the film. Let’s just fire up this stolen Apple MacBook, log onto my Spotify account, and sign this person off of Facebook so I can check my messages. Oh, I better log into Skype to video chat with all of my other moron friends from around the globe with no issues. They then go on about how clear the video is on the new laptop. Subtle.
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Jurassic Park 5 Jurassic World 2 is possibly the most nonsensical movie in the franchise so far. The movie starts with the island from Jurassic Park 4 Jurassic World 1 nearing destruction from a volcano eruption, and debate on whether the dinosaurs should be saved. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is running a non-profit trying to lobby congresspeople to agree that the dinosaurs should be saved. When this fails, she is offered a position with the company that originally created the dinosaurs and Jurassic Park. John Hammond’s partner Benjamin L wants to sneak the dinosaurs off the island, and with Claire’s understanding of the island and how dinosaurs are tracked via RFID they can Noah’s Ark key species off the island. Most important is Blue, the velociraptor from the 4th (1st) movie. To help with this Claire gets Chris Pratt’s character Roger (I can’t remember the real name. I’m going to stop looking them up.) to join in the fray. Their relationship fell apart, and the tension is more intense than when we waited on the goat from the real first movie to get eaten. (Actually, mostly it’s boring.)
I’m going to spoil the hell out of this movie, but you’re probably not going to watch it anyway. So, don’t worry.
Upgrade tells the story of simple everyman Grey Trace (Tom Hardy’s body double) from the near SCARY future who just wants to restore old cars and listen to Skynyrd. Cars are now fully automated, police drones monitor from overhead, and houses are fully Jetsonized. With his wife in tow, he delivers a Firebird to an eccentric, reclusive tech genius weirdo (shocking) who shows them the FUTURE of technology: STEM. STEM is a computer chip that can control the human body, and also can connect to your Wi-Fi without needing your password.
Finally.
I’ll need to be light on details because major plot points early on are very important to the story, and it would be unfair to give them away when you watch this movie. And you SHOULD watch this movie. Every conversation and observation made by characters from the very opening funeral scene are important to understanding what happens at the end. People are struggling with the end because it shifts in what seems like a very abrupt way. The opening funeral is for Ellen, matriarch of the Graham family. Her daughter Annie (Toni Collette) gives a eulogy noting her mother’s reclusive nature, how difficult she was, and how she’s surprised how many people are actually attending the funeral.
What follows is a story of how a family deals with loss, and how that loss brings anger, resentment, and pain that’s been smoldering up the surface for the living and the dead in this case.
Solo serves as a mix of fan service fill in the story blanks from the original trilogy, and well, little else.
If someone asked you to describe the plot to a Han Solo stand alone film I don’t think it would be much different than what eventually is seen on screen. On one hand it’s paint by numbers because we know pieces and results of the story. We know about the Kessel Run; we know he gets the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian through gambling. We know pieces. The problem is Disney plays it super safe. One: they want to make a ton of money. (You can’t win them all!) Two: Star Wars has a pretty toxic, unrelenting fan base. (Not you, of course.) There’s little room for creativity when someone is ready to yell “Canon! But the canon! But!” at any whiff of something outside of a character’s preconceived traits. I suspect this is one reason the original director was fired during production and replaced by a much safer choice in Ron Howard.
I think I may need to take a break from comic book movies.
I went in ready to like Deadpool 2 a lot. I really liked the first one. I think I did. I remember liking it, anyway. Everyone keeps saying this one is as good as the first one or even better. So, maybe that one really wasn’t good either. I do think that Deadpool had the advantage of being the first R-Rated Marvel movie since Blade in the 90s. (I think. I’m not going to look it up.) It was definitely a fresh twist on the modern comic formula, and it worked really well.
One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The end.
Oh, you want me to elaborate? (No? Well, I’m going to anyway.) This turd of a movie stars Melissa McCarthy (it was also co-written with her husband, who also directed the movie) as a mousy mother whose husband files for divorce right after they drop their daughter off for her senior year of college. McCarthy then talks in a weird high pitched old lady voice non-stop for the next 90 minutes. Other characters are allowed to speak in those few moments where she has had to stop to take a breath. It’s a relentless unfunny raining blows down upon the senses. Her voice and this movie bludgeons the ears. With teeth gnashed, and the desire to live rended, viewers are left wondering where things have gone so terribly wrong with their life. This film is less insulting bad comedy and more an introspection into the horrors humans will commit upon their fellow man.
This series examines baffling decisions and characters from popular films.
Poor old, infirm Grandpa Joe. For 20 years he laid in bed. Surely, he felt terrible being a burden to his destitute daughter, who besides having a young son, had to feed four aging adults. If only, for even a day, he could stand on his own two feet, and earn even the smallest pittance to help his family. Even for one extra morsel of stale, moldy bread he obviously would have, but alas. Grandpa Joe, bed bound for life. Cast out by society. And then one day Charlie comes home with a Golden Ticket…
I’m honestly not even sure how to review this movie for multiple reasons. For one, there’s about a million threads happening, and it would be tedious to go through them all. Secondly, SHOCKING things happen that will SURPRISE you. Nothing will EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN. (But not really.) I would love to just give them all away, but people would be angry.
If you haven’t watched the 112 other Marvel movies up to this point (I haven’t!) all you need to know is that Thanos, who looks like Dickbutt here more than anything, has two (I think) of the (6) Infinity Stones, and is working hard to get the rest of them. His motive is to wipe out half of all living things as a cure for overpopulation.
We pick up this story 90 days after aliens have landed, and boy do they want you to turn that racket down. Anything above a whisper is met with giant, unstoppable creatures wiping you out. The blind aliens’ supersonic hearing is able to discern annoying children from seemingly miles away, and the protagonists that make up the family are rife with annoying kids. The youngest, a devilish child hell-bent on destroying the family, nearly gets them all killed twice in the first ten minutes before becoming a bloody smear on the trail. While no one is looking he puts batteries in a toy that makes noise. You’d think the parents of such an ingrate wouldn’t let him lag behind and do his own thing, but there they are walking obliviously in the front of the pack together.
From this point forward it’s basically a constant reminder to the kids that they shouldn’t be making noise. Generally, right after they were making noise. I believe half the movie is just the parents shushing them.