Category: Review

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Posted December 17, 2016

You know those movies where the crew says they’re probably all going to die but they go in and fight against impossible odds and manage to (mostly) survive? Rogue One isn’t that story. This is good, gritty sci-fi. It’s rough characters that would be more complex in a smaller movie but are interesting enough in this one. It’s a decent story but with all the sci-fi and the characters it doesn’t need to be much more than that. Rogue One starts off a bit choppy. The prologue works well and sets a good foundation for both Jyn (Felicity Jones) and […]

Dr. Strange

Posted November 5, 2016

tldr: It’s Inception meets The Matrix in super hero form. Which, how has no one done Inception meets The Matrix before? They fit too perfectly together. While I knew a bit about Dr. Strange going in, like the character’s name and his look and that he messed with reality, I didn’t really know his history or the mythology around him. So, it was quite refreshing to not know what was coming for this character as the story progressed. And it progressed a bit slowly. A bit of too close detail on medical tools in the beginning. A bit of meandering […]

Captain America: Civil War

Posted May 8, 2016

When a movie does so many things well, it’s hard to find the words. It’s a lot easier to point out flaws, to identify where it could have been better and what they should have done. But Captain America: Civil War is a solid movie; probably my favorite Captain America movie and easily up in the top 5 Marvel movies overall. I liked the plot a lot better than Winter Soldier. I like that it didn’t use montages like The First Avenger. Plus, is really funny. It’s witty and it’s true to the characters and the timing was spot on […]

The Huntsman: Winter’s War

Posted April 24, 2016

I really, really wanted to love Huntsman: Winter’s War. Really. Like one of my new favorite movies kind of love. It’s fantasy action adventure which is like my perfect genre. It’s pretty and well made. It has an AMAZING song in the trailer (and I love good trailers). I wanted it to be as good as that song. As exciting. As full of passion and danger and fearlessness. It is full of interesting female characters who drive the story. And it stars Chris Hemsworth! How is this not one of the best movies ever made? Because it isn’t. And you […]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Posted December 27, 2015

Star Wars is once again delighting audiences, though I don’t know that it deserves quite the box office records its setting. Definitely better than the prequels, The Force Awakens introduces delightful new characters, leverages nostalgia to reinvent this universe and does it well. Full disclosure: I am not a Star Wars fan. Of course I grew up watching the original three on VHS. I saw the extended cuts in theaters and liked the originals better. I watched the prequels with excitement (until I actually saw Episode I) and curiosity. I know the first Star Wars is Episode IV and not […]

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Posted May 2, 2015

I happened to watch Agents of SHIELD, the Dirty Half Dozen before I went to see Age of Ultron and it was pretty impressive how one picked up right where the other left off. It felt like one universe. It was one of the few things Agents of SHIELD did right. One of the things Age of Ultron managed is that despite all the previews and hype everywhere, I still went in not knowing what to expect. And I was surprised. I liked that the pacing of the third act wasn’t typical. I liked that it did the unexpected. I […]

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Posted December 20, 2014

I went into this film with an open mind. No, that’s a lie. I did go into it wanting to be proved wrong; hoping Peter Jackson would impress me with how he pulled it all off. Didn’t work out so well. The story ends before the title card! I’m sorry that’s kind of a spoiler, but really if it happens BEFORE THE TITLE CARD OF THE FILM can it really be considered a spoiler? If so, then I apologize. I was admittedly rolling my eyes a few times rather liberally after that start. Because my trust in this film was […]

Interstellar

Posted November 9, 2014

Christopher Nolan… I don’t even know where to begin. Which is, I guess, a good thing. His movies are not simple. They’re never straight forward and easy to analyze. I like that about them. But it also means there is no clear cut – this was a good movie or I didn’t like that movie. They are certainly never an easy thing to review. There’s always all these layers in Nolan films of the things that worked and didn’t work and sometimes both liking something and not liking it at the same time. It’s all very complicated. In some places […]

X-Men Days of Future Past

Posted June 16, 2014

I did not expect to love Days of Future Past the way I did. The concept was complicated and convoluted. There were stories from the set about the script changing or this or that going wrong. I didn’t love any of the earlier films in the franchise, even though X-Men was always my favorite cast of comic characters growing up. I actually feel like a lot of the franchise was really mishandled prior to this film. But that’s the cool thing about Days of Future Past – it’s this remarkable reset button. And it’s actually an X-Men movie done well. […]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Posted April 4, 2014

There were a lot of things in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that were a lot of fun. Not the least of which is Captain America himself. Even so, it wasn’t quite what I expected. It was much more real world than prior Marvel movies, I think even more so than the Iron Man films. Because Tony Stark as a billionaire playboy doesn’t resemble much of real life even when he’s not in the suit. It almost didn’t even quite feel like a super hero movie. Which I liked. It took this very fantastic universe and grounded it in a […]

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