Solo: A Star Wars Story: 8/10

 

Just Friends - 8/10: I haven't seen this film in a very long time. Years and years. Absolutely worth revisiting after all this time.

Hilarious, slap stick and sweet. Ryan Reynolds before he was super super famous. Although, it's hard to see him in this role after Deadpool because that's all you can see now. lol

 

Book Club - 7.5/10

Yes, it's the "old women read the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy" movie. Surprisingly, I thought it was pretty good. It was predictable, following the romantic comedy formula to a T, but in terms of acting and overall execution, I found it enjoyable. Only thing that really bothered me were the daughter characters for Diane Keaton, thinking that their mother couldn't take care of herself at every turn. That was really annoying.

 

Dudes & Dragons - 8/10
Horrible CGI, though to be fair that may have been on purpose considering what they're going for. Spike from Buffy, Thane from Mythica, and more nerd references than you could shake a dragon-fly at. Holy hell is this movie funny. If you're into Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, remember the Dragonlance novels or just enjoy good ol' nerd references with a ton of self-deprecation, get on this movie. It's amazing. But not as amazing as . . .

Deadpool 2: 9/10
This would be 10/10 if the kid hadn't been one of the most annoying on-screen presences I've seen in about twenty years give or take. The rest of the cast was fantastic. And the cameos. . . good lord. Ryan shooting the look at the camera when he's getting choked out and Collosus is saying "and you always make it harder" had my dying. "Papa can you hear me." Because THAT'S what he should be focused on. So many jokes. Loved it, in all honesty. I know some have complaints about it. One of the teenagers sitting behind me yelled out "this movie sucks!" right as the credits started rolling, which made me wanna smack him. Outside of that most of the crowd were pretty polite outside of some laughs and minor heckling of the bad guys. Good times. If I had more time I'd go see it again before it leaves.

 

Lupin the Third: Blood Seal - Eternal Mermaid:
The new voices are acceptable enough, except for Koichi Yamadera. He's no Goro Naya. Masako Nozawa is in this movie and she's a villain, and that's awesome! I'm amazed it took such a famous veteran this long to join the famous Lupin the Third franchise. The art style is reminiscing of Miyazaki's designs and Lupin is accompanied by a girl which you might think this makes it a child friendly Lupin like Cagliostro, but it also got a few bloody violent moments thanks to a character with healing factor. I mean, yeah... some Ghibli movies are violent but this is not a Ghibli movie and Miyazaki had nothing to do with it. But in the end this is also like Cagliostro with an overly heroic Lupin.

In short: not a fan of it.

4/10

 

The greatest showman 9/10

I don’t care much for musicals but this was a fantastic movie. Likable characters, good pace, the music numbers and the choreography were outstanding. I was pleasantly surprise and impressed by this film

 

Annihilation - 7/10

It was fine. Cool visuals and some really good scenes (that mutant bear was freaky), but as a whole, I thought Ex Machina was better. Acting was a bit of a mixed bag, which made it hard for me to get into the story, and I didn't like the music until the last twenty minutes when it decided to get surreal and experimental.

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story - 8/10

 

In honour of the unexpected but very appreciated success of Cobra Kai.....

...The Karate Kid (1984) - 10/10

Its a great movie; Pat Morita (R.I.P.) deservedly won an Oscar for his portrayal of Miyagi-sensei and both Ralph and William make for what I would call a fairly true to life (for the time) pair of teenagers who are if not to equal degrees certainly in similar ways, assholes to one another. Daniel is no perfect flower child and more than a few times comes across as ungrateful and rude; whereas Johnny is entitled and violent.

Its ultimately an interesting look at the impact parent figures have in our lives. Daniel could just as easily become like Johnny, and vice versa. But Daniel had Miyagi-sensei and Johnny had Kreese.

 

Unsane 6.5/10

Pretty decent psychological thriller. Not sure why it's getting billed as a horror film though.
Worth a watch.

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story 6.5/10

 

The Greatest Showman - 5/10

 

Friday the 13th part 7: The New Blood
7/10
Still a silly, fun time. I lose track of how many times the main characters & Jason run in circles between the woods and their house by the lake. It makes literally no sense. One moment Jason is stalking someone in the woods miles from the house. The next, he’s killing someone in the house. And then back to the woods again! They’re all over the place in this one.
Still, it’s got a weird kind of charm that I like about it. Paramount had the F13 formula down to a science.

 

Black Panther (2018)
5/10
Found this movie to be full of tropes and formulaic plot elements, the characeters were uninteresting and the whole thing hollow and boring.

 

The Cloverfield Paradox 6/10

 

X-Men (2000): 7/10

I've maybe seen bits of this before, but never front-to-back. The only thing I consistently remember seeing is the end of X-Men: The Last Stand on TV. Without fail, of it's on its from the bridge scene or later. So I wanted to check it out.

All that good good casting is here, Stewart shines as Xavier of course, but I don't think McKellen gets enough credit for his cordial, Bond Villainesque Magneto. Jackman is fine, but he doesn't get as much to work with here as in other films. I actually like Cyclops a lot, which is impossible normally. More on Jean in a bit.

The main knock against the movie is that it just doesn't look very nice. The outfits are drab in that 2000s hero movie sort of way. Magneto's brotherhood is made up of mutants that are gross looking wither intentionally (Toad) or unintentionally (Sabertooth, featured here waiting for Geico to call back about his commercial deal).

I was surprised not to see Kelsey Grammar in this movie, and that when Kitty Pryde made her brief cameo it wasn't Ellen Paige. So when the movie ended I was immediately interested in starting the next one.

X2: X-Men United - 7/10

Oh they aren't in this one either. You know, for a movie called X-Men united they sure do spend most of the film split in three groups.

I always knew this one as "the Nightcrawler one," and that this universe's Nightcrawler was essentially created with the knowledge that he was blue and Catholic, and little else. He's still a fun addition to the cast. I would maybe give it a bit higher of a score than X1 because the plot is a lot more classic X-Men faire. This makes it a lot more comic booky and "fun," in the way that watching horrible bigots try to commit fantasy genocide is "fun." But it all seems very much like this should have been the last stand. All these characters are facing huge obstacles and making big sacrifices that don't greatly gel with the fact that we barely know any of them yet. Another movie where the characters can develop more would have been so good. Jean in particular has a lot of issues, in part because her superpower is visually "frown at the middle distance." Her sacrifice at the end doesn't carry a lot of weight because while she's nice and strong and heroic and all that, she hasn't done that much between the last two movies. Her increasingly powerful abilities and her death serve more to set up Last Stand than they do to add to her character.

Everything else about the plot is good. The three-way conflict between Stryker, Xavier, and Magneto. Wolverine delving into his past. It's all good stuff. But I suppose that's still the issue with the Fox X-Men. Magneto, Xavier, and Wolverine get all the meaty roles, everyone else is set dressing.

 

Upgrade - 9/10

If John Wick, Ex Machina, and Black Mirror had a brainstorm, this would probably be the result of it.

 

Solo: 7.5/10

I liked it - glad I went!

 

Gods of Egypt - 6/10

Look, this isn’t a terrible movie and some of the visuals really are stunning. Ra and his nightly gambit is a treat, Nikolai is a likeable enough lead and Gerard Butler is basically playing an evil, Egyptian Leonidas so he’s fun enough.

Other than that though, it’s a a pretty forgettable movie that doesn’t look (overall) as good as it should considering the money spent. It’s harmless fluff, but putting aside the controversy on its release I have no idea why it’s director thought this was going to light the world on fire.