Category Archives: New Movies Reviews (2016)

“Finding Dory” Directed by Andrew Stanton & Angus MacLane

I’ll be honest. I find Dory kind of annoying. I find her short term memory as a joke gets old really fast and whenever Marlon got frustrated with her, I was on his side. However almost everything else is the movie is very funny. The other animals are funny, Marlon being a bit of a snarker is funny, and I find some of the situations to be funny. The new main characters are funny, the side characters are funny, and the characters that have no lines are still funny! I just find Dory annoying when she has to be funny. When she has to be emotional it works and when she’s having her flashbacks she’s precious. Originally all of Dory’s family was gonna have short term memory. Quote Stanton –
“She has this line in the first movie, she says, ‘I suffer from short-term memory loss. It runs in my family. At least, I think it does.’ And I spent the first year and half, maybe two, with my writer, Victoria Strouse, trying to make parents with short-term memory loss work – and I don’t recommend it, because it’s annoying to have three people with short-term memory loss try to talk to each other. It’s not funny for that long. It’s annoying very quickly. It was a problem, and so we abandoned that.”
Good.
Other than my complaints about Dory, I think its a very funny movie and has a lot of redeeming features. The Sea Lions are the highlight in my opinion.
Final Verdict: 7/10 Seashells

“Captain America: Civil War” Directed by Joe & Antony Russo

Yet another amazing Marvel movie. I keep saying I’ll forgive their next movie if it’s bad and it’s never bad! So after some civilian casualties during one of their missions the UN wants to put a leash on the Avengers. Tony/Iron Man is all for this, but Steve/Captain America is against this. During the UN meeting a bomb is set off and the King of Wakanda is killed. Captain’s friend Bucky is the main suspect and that sets off to betray the governments of the UN and the Avengers to save this one guy. So this movie brings in the oldies from the other movies, but also brings in some new guys. New characters include the new Spider Man, the first appearance of Black Panther, and Ant Man (despite being in his own film hasn’t been in the Avengers). The movie has a good mix of action, comedy, and talking. The first action scene and the fight against the SWAT team in the apartment were nauseating due to the shaking cam and the very rapid cuts, but every other fight was very well done, especially the fight between all the heroes. The weakest part of the movie was the villain and Captain America’s personal heroism was frustrating. It was better than Age of Ultron, but its still not my favorite.
Final Verdict 8/10 Action Scenes.

“Batman V Superman” Directed by Zach Synder

So I saw the Red Carpet screening of the movie. It was….better than Man of Steel. There wasn’t any of Pa Kent’s bullcrap about keeping yourself hidden, not saving those kids, and not using your powers to help anyone. Granted Supes did destroy half of Metropolis when he was trying to save it. So Batfleck wants to beat the crap out of Supes because a family member died in a building Supes destroyed. He carves some Kryptonite weapon and almost kills him, but he gets guilt tripped out of it cause Supes and Batfleck have mom’s with the same first name. Lex Luthor makes a monster out of General Zod (the effect is just the Troll from Lord of the Rings) and after a fight the heroes win…Thats all the non spoiler stuff i’ll go into. Turn back now.
The action is way to fast, the movie is way to long, the music is kinda dull, the Jesus Symbolism is frustrating (though not as bad as in Man of Steel), and just like in Man of Steel theres a death at the end thats completely avoidable….The goods though? Ben Affleck was good, Jessie Eisenberg as Lex Luthor was great, there was a few kinda funny moments, and the scene with Kevin Costner WORKED.
Final Verdict – 3/10 Kyrptonite Spears

“Gods of Egypt” Directed by Alex Proyas

Gods-of-Egypt-Fiery-Poster
A film very loosely based on Egyptian mythos with an all white cast? What could go wrong? Just about everything. The casting, the effects, the characters, the story, and the feel of the film were all wrong. So we have Gerard Butler as Set, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) as Horus, Brenton Thwaites as our mortal hero, and Geoffrey Rush as Ra. Pretty much an all white and tanned cast to play Egyptians (who in case you don’t know aren’t the whitest group of people on Earth). I hate to use this, but Chadwick Boseman plays the “Magical BlacK” character. He shows up to solve the riddle of the Sphinx (A GREEK MYTHOS!) and he gets it wrong two or three times. Worthless. The actors have three ranges.
1: Takes it so dramatically serious you’d think it’s Macbeth.
2: Just kind of reading their lines, taking the paycheck and going home.
3: Just toss any direction away and chew the nonexistent scenery like it was bubble gum.
Nearly all the gods go under 1. Most of the mortals we see go into 2. But the villains…OH MAN! Gerard Butler and Rufus Sewell as the Masterbuilder are glorious. Hamming it up in just about every scene, feasting on the CG backdrops, and saying every line like they have to give a presentation for a class they don’t even like. They got the most laughs out of me because of how little they took this seriously. Which is good because this movie is dumb. It makes up mythos left and right, takes stuff from other beliefs, and just makes jokes over the gods. They all have transformers/power ranger’s esque morphing sequences where they become their animal representation. Except Ra. Oh god Ra. So bear with me. So Ra flies in the sky in a space ship version of Jabba’s sail barge, his ‘god’ form is just twice his size and on fire, and he spends all eternity shooting fire at a black space worm that wants to eat Egypt…STOP LAUGHING THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS! Also nitpick, but Ra is not Horus’ grandfather in the mythology. He was Horus’ great-great grandfather. The film is either an action scene (terrible ones), terrible comedy lines (the funniest parts are when they’re supposed to be serious), and boring talky scenes. Almost every scene in a green screen. Almost every effect is a CG effect. Large city, vast jungle (IN EGYPT!), castle bedroom, library, temple, open room, and desert. Almost every set is CG. Its astounding that people complain about the use of CG in the Star Wars Prequels, but at least they built sets and shot on location (sometimes). This was such a bad movie, but I recommend it only if you want a laugh.
Final Verdict: 3/10 CG Sets.

“Deadpool” Directed by Tim Miller

teaser-one-sheet
More proof that Marvel can do no wrong! This was amazing. I love Deadpool comics (what little I read) and I love Marvel comedies. I loved Antman and until this Guardians of the Galaxy was my favorite Marvel movie. Now it’s Deadpool. The movie is essentially a cartoon. Stupid, funny, filled with impossible violence, jokes around every corner, and the characters themselves are like cartoons. Deadpool is a foul mouthed and perverted psychopath, Colossus (who is still useless) is a Russian gentle giant, Negasonic Teenage Warhead (ACTUAL NAME) is broody and a teenage, Francis is british, and his lady partner will break you. The movie is an amazing comedy with countless amount of violence. The opening scene has Deadpool violently beating people up in slow motion! Then we see him coloring willing listening to Salt-N-Pepa. I loved this movie. It has some touching moments with Wade and his girlfriend and I genuinely cared about their relationship (also I got some serious vibes reminding me of a relationship between two characters I write). I highly recommend it! Don’t bring your kids though. You see naked people, blood, violence, cursing, drug references, sexual references, and Stan Lee is the DJ at a strip club. Also the post credit scene is actually AT THE END OF THE CREDITS!
Final Verdict: 10/10 Deadpool masks.

“Hail Caesar” Directed by the Coen Brothers

hail caesar poster
As a big Coen Brothers fan I must say I am glad this movie was good! It was funny, groovy, weird, and confusing as all hell. The film is about the making of three films. One is a film about a Roman solider who meets Jesus, the second is a broadway adaptation romance film, and the third is a musical. George Clooney is filming the roman film and he gets kidnapped by Communist screen writers! Hobie Doyl is a singing cowboy who gets stared in the broadway film, and Burt Gurney (played by Channing Tatum) is in the broadway film. So MASSIVE SPOILERS! Burt Gurney is revealed to be a Commie so he flees onto a submarine that is piloted by DOLPH LUNDGREN! That scene was amazing! END SPOILERS! But yeah these communists complain about not getting paid, but it’s probably because they were blacklisted! Josh Brolin is our lead actor who is the studio fixer to stop scandals. He keeps the films together and interacts with everyone. He is also extremely pious and has some issues with being away from his family. I can’t really talk about Coen brothers films because they are so disjointed and weird. On where this ranks when it comes to the other films…I prefer Fargo, Big Lebowski is in the top 10 favorite films, and I don’t know how I can compare this to No Country for Old Men. Regardless this film is very funny and I highly recommend it.
Final Verdict: 9/10 Communist Manifestos.

“Hateful Eight” Directed by Quentin Tarantino

I love Tarantino! I’ll just admit that I love his movies. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are two of my favorite movies of all time. This was one of the last shows and Alpine Cinema. STOP THAT! Goddamn Alvin and the Chipmunks 4: The Road Chip (GRRR!) Was put in theaters the same day as star wars (the 18th of december) and this was released about a week later. This is one of the last shows days for Hateful Eight, but NOPE. Road Chip gets to be in theaters beyond next Tuesday! STOP THIS! Also my experience of going there was the most fun. I walked in the 20 blocks to the theater and found myself in a long line for the ticket place with 5 minutes till the movie started. Five minutes pass. I check my phone and another five minutes passed. Check my phone again and ten minutes passed! The line only got longer and after the 2nd five minutes I realized that there was no one at the ticket stand. I stood out in the freezing cold pissed that I was missing the movie and was considering just walking back home. Then the manager came out and said, “All movies between 4:20 and 4:45 are now 5:00 screenings.” Son of a _____! I spent ten minutes warming up in the comic book store and I did check out a cool comic called Monstress. On the plus side I did get an almost empty theater.
Now onto the movie! It was a lot of fun. This is a very Tarantino movie. The music by Ennio Morricone was fantastic (like always), the actors did fantastic (whether they be Tarantino regulars like Samuel Jackson, Tim Roth, and Michael Madsen or some other big actors like Kurt Russell, Bruce Dern, and Jennifer Jason Leigh), the writing was solid, the cinematography was fantastic, the action and violence was fun, and it had good pacing. It follows Kurt Russell as a bounty hunter who has captured JJL to hang her for murder. He sees Samuel Jackson and lets him on. He then meets Walton Goggins as Chris Mannix the new sheriff of the town Kurt wants to hang her in. They stop at an inn and they meet the rest of the characters. They enjoy some banter and racism. There’s a great scene where Samuel Jackson tells the story of how he stripped a racist bastard naked, made him walk through the snow for two hours, and then mare the man suck his dick for a blanket (which he didn’t get). The person he told this too was a racist civil war general for the Confederacy who was also the father of that man. Then Kurt and his stage coach driver die of poisoning. Then Samuel was shot in the balls. Cut to a flashback of three of the characters and Channing Tatum killing everyone in the inn and waiting for Kurt Russell. Channing waits under the floor boards for the entire time and three gunman have been up there the whole time. This raises a massive plot whole. WHY DIDN’T THE KILL KURT SOONER!? He had his back to them for long ass amounts of time before he dies so why didn’t they just kill him, Sam, and Walton earlier!? So Sam survives and after a scene of murder and gunslinging all the gang members are killed. They decide to honor Kurt by hanging JJL just like he wanted to. Then they bleed out during the end credits I guess.
Once again this is a Tarantino movie. If you don’t like Tarantino you will NOT like this movie. It was fun and enjoyable. The last half hour fell apart to me. It had some plot wholes and a lot of the stuff seemed to go nowhere. Come to think of it…The more I talk about the ending it pisses me off! Also the twist that everyone had done it I was a tad disappointed. I preferred them all as random people. Really I still recommend you see it cause it’s still Tarantino, the dialog is still very fun, and Kurt Russell was very fun.
Final Verdict: 7/10 Revolvers.