Movie Review: Her Private Hell

 

Michael's Movie Grae: D-

An incoherent mess of an art film. 

There is no use in me giving any sort of a story summary here because the story is too big of a mess to effectively describe here. The story somehow manages to be too simplistic and incoherently complex at the same time. The result is a movie that constantly tries to prove itself as something artistic yet has nothing to actually say. So do not go into this film trying to find the deeper meaning underneath all incoherent weirdness. There simply isn't any. I love art house cinema and that is why I hate movies like this. They give artsy a bad name and make many movie goers believe art films are a bunch of pretentious slop like this. This may be Her Private Hell but that doesn't mean it has to feel like Hell for the viewers as well. There is only so much visual randomness, poorly defined characters, painfully pretentious dialogue and incoherent storytelling that one can take. This movie may be under two hours, but it felt longer than some four-hour movies I have seen. I kept waiting for it to end but kept being disappointed whenever the story continued. Even the visuals, which even some of the film's harshest critics like, are simply too much. There is too much going on visually that after a while it simply gets tiring to look at. 

A great cast (lead by the always wonderful Sophie Thatcher) and a truly wonderful musical score (by Pino Donaggio) can't even come close to saving this mess of a movie. 

Movie Review: The Odyssey

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent big screen epic. 

Christopher Nolan has always been a filmmaker who has not been afraid to take chances. However, adapting The Odyssey may be one of his riskiest ventures yet. Still the result paid off with flying colors. While this may not be a fully faithful adaptation, it manages to capture the story's epic scale. This movie feels larger than life. It looks like an old school Hollywood epic in all the best ways possible. It is rare to find a modern movie that truly has this larger than life feel and that is exactly what this film does. That Nolan relies heavily on practical effects of course plays no small role in this. This alone would be reason enough to recommend it. Yet there is still much more to recommend here. The action scenes are excellent, and the best Nolan has done since Dunkirk. There is a strong emotion center here. The scene in Hades as a scene towards the end of the picture hit all the right emotional marks. What surprised me though is how well the horror scenes worked. I did not expect this movie to dip as far into the horror genre as it did and here Nolan proves himself to be an excellent horror filmmaker. The Cerci scene made me feel incredibly uncomfortable in a way that even some real horror films never have.

The casting is often excellent but sometimes misses the mark. Matt Damon is perfect as the lead, making this character feel larger than life and yet still human at the same time. Elliott Paige is fantastic in a smaller but important role. He is very much responsible for the film's most emotionally impactful moments. Anne Hathaway is great as the queen, and you forget you are watching a well-known actress. Samantha Norton is terrifying as Cerci. However, Tom Holland and Robert Patterson seem out of place here, like their characters don't belong in a period epic but instead in a modern-day story. There is nothing wrong Zendaya's performance. However, she is too recognizable as Zendaya, and the script gives her too little to actually do. Since most of the time when she is on screen, there is no opportunity for her to stretch her acting muscles, we are always aware we are looking at Zendaya instead of seeing the character. 

With so many characters, there is little time to flesh many of them out. This can make some characters feel more like plot devices than actually people (especially Robert Patterson's bully). The movie can also feature bits of clumsy dialogue that are disappointing in an adaption of a classic work of literature.  

This may not be perfect. However, it is a great movie going experience, especially if seen on a big IMAX screen. 

Movie Review: The Invite

 

Michael's Movie Grade: F

A painfully unpleasant comedy. 

In this film a married couple (Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde), who are constantly fighting, have their neighbors (Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton) over for dinner. However, the night goes in unexpected directions. 

Olivia Wilde made her directorial debut with the very funny raunchy comedy, Booksmart (2019). With this being another R rated comedy, I was looking forward to a raunchy and funny good time. This was the wrong thing to expect. The last thing this movie provides is a good time. For what is supposed to be a funny comedy, this is a bitter mean-spirited movie. Though comedy can be used to look at serious subjects, this is something that needs with a lot of care and needs to use comedy to make these uncomfortable subjects feel more approachable. That is not true at all here. Much of this movie is simply spent watching married couples bickering. Considering the reviews this movie is getting, I must be in the minority. However, I just don't find watching married people yell at each other and saying nasty things to each other funny. There were comedic ideas here that could have been funny (such as the discussions of the neighbors' lifestyle) but the comedic potential is ruined, when anything that might be funny simply turns back to mean spirited bickering. I felt very uncomfortable listening to these arguments to the point I just wanted to get up and leave the theatre multiple times. I did not enjoy spending a single miserable moment with these characters. This is something that hurt the movie even past its comedic moments. Towards the end the film asks you to take its story more seriously. Yet any emotional moment simply falls flat when you don't care about these characters. There are even times when this movie tries to make a commentary about marriage and relationships. Yet in the end, everything it says is so obvious that a person who has been single their whole loves has even heard it a million times. 

There is simply neither enough laughs nor depth to make it worth sitting through this unpleasant mean-spirited movie.   

Movie Review: Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B-

An uneven but sometimes hilarious comedy.

In this film, a young couple in conversation talks about who their celebrity sex passes (a celebrity they would be allowed to have sex with without it being considered cheating) would be, just for fun. The guy decides that he would have sex with Jennifer Aniston and our heroine, Gail Daughtry, decides she would have sex with John Hamm. When the guy actually ends up having sex with Jennifer Aniston, Gail decides she needs to find a way to have sex with John Hamm. 

This movie is full of proudly juvenile humor. The dumb and silly comedy comes fast and furious. As soon as one gag end, another one follows it immediately. With these constant gags throughout, naturally not all of them hit. In fact, as this film starts, it seems like it is going to be painfully unfunny. It is always hardest for a comedy to be funny, while it is setting up its story. Yet there are still constant gags in the story's set up and nearly all these jokes really fall flat. However, as the story gets going the movie gets funnier. This starts happening gradually with more and more gags working as the film went on. When it got to the last act, I was laughing out loud regularly. As much as the humor can really fall flat at times, when the movie is funny it is completely hilarious. That the humor gets better as the film goes on is heavily due to the cast of eccentric characters (especially John Slatery playing himself). As the movie's story becomes a sex joke filled retelling of Wizard of OZ, our main character meets more friends who join her for her journey. Zoey Deutch as the main character is very purposely over the top with her wide-eyed wonder and naive optimism. This type of character is frankly funnier, when given someone strong to play off of. When a strong supporting cast is given to this character, it is no wonder that she gets funnier. This main group of characters plays off each other so well and this is where the best humor often times comes from. When the humor drifts away from this group and on to other characters (the mail man as the narrator is painfully unfunny) and celebrity cameos, that is when it falls flat. 

While a lot of the humor doesn't work, this is still a comedy that made me laugh out loud multiple times.  

Movie Review: Jackass: Best and Last

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

Crude, juvenile, stupid and a heck of a lot of fun. 

The last film for these lovable overgrown frat boys is a mixture of footage from the previous movies as well as the TV show and new stunts filmed for this movie. These stunts both old and new appeal perfectly to the immature middle schoolers in all of us. Some of them are so crazy, we wonder how these guys could have possibly lived through the last 26 years. Others are full of pure gross out humor that works because these guys are so dedicated to the bits that it is hard not to get caught up in their immaturity. The best bits are often a delightful mixture of pure gross out comedy and dangerous stunts. There are also some practical jokes on others as they go out. I admit I find these less funny or entertaining than the dangerous or gross-out bits. However, the theater was laughing very hard along with these practical jokes, so I am in the minority there. 

However, what really makes this movie and this franchise as a whole work is the loveable people performing these stunts. Often times the banter between them is funnier than the stunts themselves. We have really grown to love and care about these guys over the course of these five movies and the TV series that began it all. It is almost sad to say goodbye to these people who have grown to feel like friends to us. They themselves actually get pretty emotional about this themselves. In-between the old clips and the new stunts are scenes with them reminiscing about the last 26 years. There is a real sweetness to these scenes where we see just how much these guys love and care about each other. One doesn't expect to feel touched watching a movie where a guy sits in a porta potty which is flung into the air by a giant slingshot and finds himself covered in crap, but here we are. It is hard for a movie where a good portion of it is simply a clip show to stand out. However, these scenes give it a bit of a unique feel. 

A strong ending to this franchise. 

     

Movie Review: The Death of Robin Hood

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

A compelling and thoughtful revisionist take on the tale of Robin Hood. 

Don't go into this movie expecting a typical Robin Hood film. This is not a swashbuckling adventure starring a young dashing Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks. Rather this is often a quiet meditative film that is more interested in delving into the psyche of the main character than providing an action-packed spectacle. Even when we do get action scenes there is very little fun to them. Instead, these scenes are unforgivingly brutal and hard to watch. Still, this is keeping very much with the theme of this movie, rather than being gore for the sake of gore. The brutality serves a purpose here. It is here to rid our minds of any sort of romantism. Instead, we are thrown into a world where violence, even if it is at first well intentioned, deeply changes a person for the worse. We see Robin Hood as an old man (played marvelously by Hugh Jackman), who does not view himself as a hero but instead as a person whose entire legacy was built on nothing but violence and bloodshed. After some early brutal scenes, the rest of the film is very quiet and introspective causing us to go into dark places that we normally wouldn't associate with a Robin Hood story. While this film will definitely divide movie fans and critics for years to come, it leaves a devastating emotional impact and lots of food for thought. 

Director/writer Michael Sarnoski (Pig (2021), A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)) not only dismantles and deconstructs the tale of Robin Hood but also creates a powerful cautionary tale about violence and when fiction and romanticism override the brutal truth. 

I am not saying this movie is for everyone. It can be unrelenting in its unpleasantness, and the pacing will probably be too slow for those used to big blockbusters. Others will simply have a hard time accepting such a dark take on such a beloved figure. Yet if you are willing to give yourself over to such a challenging movie that asks a lot of its audience, it is an extremely rewarding experience.   

Movie Review: Obsession

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C+

A well-made but incredibly predictable horror movie. 

In this film, a young man has a massive crush on a close female friend but is too scared to tell her. One day he comes across an object called a One Wish Williow, which is said to grant one specific wish. Not believing that this will work he uses one and wishes that his friend loved him more than anyone else in the whole world. The wish comes true and at first seems like a dream come true, but her obsession with him gets darker and more twisted. 

The basic storyline is a great twist on the classic monkey paw storyline. It is instantly relatable as many of us might have wished for the same thing he did, only to regret making the wish shortly after. And if we ended up in the same situation he is in, we too would try to shift the blame from ourselves and try to live out our fantasy regardless of how creepy things become. That is the truly disturbing thing about this film. We see darker parts of ourselves that we often try to deny or suppress brought to the surface. This movie also delivers some great scares. The jump scares here are incredibly effective, and the first one definitely made me jump out of my seat. Many scenes revolving around the friend turned girlfriend, Nikki, are legitimately disturbing in the best way possible (though the scenes revolving around the cat were unnecessary). 

However, there are many things that keep this from being the great movie it should have been. The main fault is its predictability. You figure out how this film is going to end well before it happens. The last act can start to make an audience member grow impatient as it takes its time to get to this very predictable ending. Some other scenes that are supposed to be shocking are also incredibly predictable. The movie also tries to inject a lot of dark humor into its storyline, but this humor is very rarely funny. I also felt the whole movie could have been stronger if we knew more about who the main female character was before the wish was made. This could have given the movie a much stronger emotional connection. 

I enjoyed this movie, but I still don't think it fully lived up to the hype around it. 

    

Movie Review: Power Ballad

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A pretty good dramedy. 

In this movie, a former boy band member who is struggling to create a solo career (Nick Jonas) spends a night jamming with a wedding band singer (Paul Rudd). The wedding band singer sings a chorus of a song that he wrote himself. Months later, the former boyband singer records that song and doesn't give any songwriting credit to the wedding singer. When the song becomes a massive hit, it causes the wedding singer to go on a downward spiral. 

With a movie about songwriting, naturally the songs are very important to if the movie works. While the songs here may not be as incredible as they are sometimes treated, they are quite good. They are very nice and pleasant to listen to and while the lyrics may lack much depth, they aren't bad. I can picture How to Write a Song Without You becoming a hit song and people singing along to it. Though I actually admit I prefer the other songs the former boy band singer wrote himself (and which didn't become hits). However, I often find my favorite songs on albums to be the album tracks, so this probably says more about me. The songs themselves are co-written by Gary Clark and the film's director (and co-writer) John Carney. The duo had previously written songs for Carney's previous film, Sing Street (2016). Incidentally, Clark had been a member of the 1980's pop band, Danny Wilson, and Danny Wilson is the name of the boyband singer here. 

The movie does a great job of exploring the two main male characters. There is quite a bit of depth to them, and Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas give truly great performances. Though these characters often do the wrong thing, we relate to them and understand what makes them do it. This keeps a strong emotional connection to these characters throughout the film. 

Unfortunately, the other characters are very underdeveloped. We know pretty much nothing about the other members of the wedding band or the wedding band singer's wife and daughter. This becomes a major problem as the film goes on. It becomes clear that much of the heart of this movie is supposed to come from the love he has for his daughter. Unfortunately, his daughter receives little screen time and in the screen time she has we barely learn anything about her. Because of this, the emotion that is supposed to comes from the scenes revolving around this relationship often simply isn't felt by the audience.   

For a dramedy, this movie also is never that funny. Some of the humor made me smile or chuckle but I never once really laughed, while watching this. 

While I won't give anything away, the ending is fantastic, hitting all the right emotional notes. 

Movie Review: Scary Movie

 

Movie Review: B-

While it may not fully live up to the hilarity of the first Scary Movie (which is still a wonderful comedy), this is still a very enjoyable comedy.

With this sixth entry into this franchise (just one behind Scream, which the first movie was a parody of), the Wayans Brothers, who starred in and wrote the first two films, return here as both stars and writers. 

This film is just what you have come to expect from this franchise. There is simply one joke after another with no time to rest between them. These jokes are dumb, crude, violent and self-referential. With the sheer number of jokes from start to finish, it is only natural that not every joke hits. However more of them hit then don't. There are many moments here that made me laugh out loud. Some of the horror movie parodies are truly hilarious. The Weapons parody was especially hilarious. There is also some very funny slapstick humor here. All the scenes in the hospital are top notch slapstick. However, there are still gags that simply fall flat. Some of these gags go on for much too long. The church scene starts off kind of funny but loses steam as it goes on along. By the end, what started off as a funny scene simply stops being funny long before it ends. There are also times when this movie tries too hard to be politically incorrect or offensive. These gags are rarely funny and simply seem to be just there for shock value (the ICE gag is admittedly funny though, as is one "offensive" murder scene). Considering this franchise was always more concerned with making fun of horror movie tropes and being quite crude rather than actually being offensive, this feels especially unnecessary. 

The ending really didn't work for me here. It is not only not funny, but it seems simply like the Wayans Brothers venting, making it too bitter and mean spirited for this type of comedy. The storyline can also be a bit of mess (some scenes really make no sense in hindsight), but no one is watching this for the story, so that is a minor flaw. 

The first entry is still the best film in the franchise (I am also a fan of the second and third entries) but even if it can't fully live up to that movie, this is still a fun comedy.  

Movie Review: Backrooms

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

An eerie and atmospheric horror film. 

In this movie, a man discovers a series of backrooms behind a wall in his furniture store. 

For the first two-thirds or so of the movie, it plays like an old school horror movie. There is barely any blood or gore and though we get the feeling that something is watching our main character, we are not allowed to see what is actually watching him. Here we see horror filmmaking at its best. Rather than relying on cheap jump scares or gore, this film focuses on creating a sense of atmosphere and dread. Exploring some almost universal fears (confined spaces, being alone and what you can't see), this movie manages to be scarier than many horror films that tend to focus on jump scares or disturbing images. If you were to head home by yourself after this movie, you might just find yourself looking over your shoulder, every time you hear a noise. 

In the last act. this film completely changes into something more philosophical and cerebral. The tonal change doesn't completely work as it can feel very abrupt, almost like we entered into a completely different movie. This act starts by examining something that we heard the main character talk about very early on. To suddenly make this the focus after it had been seemingly suddenly dropped and moved on from makes the tonal change even more abrupt. Yet the themes discussed and brought up in this final act are very intelligent and thought provoking. Unlike many horror films, this will not only leave you with a sense of dread but also a lot of food for thought. And the more thought you give to this final act, the more intriguing and smarter it becomes. The ending will especially leave you with a lot on your mind. However, I must admit that this final act has some pacing problems and can feel longer than it needs to. There is also the fault that when we actually see the “monster,” it simply looks more silly than scary. 

While far from perfect, this is a legitimately scary and thought-provoking horror film.     

 

Movie Review: Tuner

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A+

Documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher's first fictional film is a wonderful thriller. 

In this movie, a piano tuner (Leo Woodall) with a hearing condition that makes him hear noises extra loud, discovers that this condition gives him a gift for opening safes. When a group of safe robbers discover his ability, they offer him a chance to make more money opening safes for them. At first, he isn't interested. However, when he needs the money to help his hospitalized friend (Dustin Hoffman), he feels he has no choice but to help them. 

This is a masterfully made thriller. The story starts off as a slice of life tale about piano tuners. Yet even these early scenes are very engaging due to strong characterizations, smart dialogue and some funny humor. The story slowly becomes more dramatic and tense. This build up makes it so that each suspense scene builds upon the last and becomes incredibly tense towards the end. It also makes it so that when each suspense scene comes, we are fully engrossed in the story making the tension all the more effective. 

One element that very much surprised me here was how strong the romance was. Often times the romantic scenes feel shoehorned into a movie like this. Luckily that is not the case here. The romance is actually kind of sweet and leads to some of the film's most emotionally effective scenes. 

This is not only a well-written film, but the technical filmmaking is also fantastic. For a movie that revolves around sound, the filmmakers know exactly how to use this for their advantage. There are many times that we are allowed to hear things the same way our main character does with certain sounds muffled or amplified at the right times. This puts us in the main character's shoes and has us experiencing everything with him. This use of sound is also perfectly to help create the suspense. One scene involves our main character opening a safe in a very noisy environment. Without this use of amplified and muffled sounds, this very tense scene would lose what makes it so effective. The movie also has one of the greatest uses of crosscutting I have seen in a current movie in quite a while. One scene cuts back and forth between a character playing piano and a tense situation for our main character. The timing of when these cuts as well as the emotional connection between what is happening in both places makes this a perfect example of suspense filmmaking. It also helps that the piano music we are hearing perfectly matches the emotions we should be feeling as an audience. 

While I won't give away the ending here, I will say it is perfect. It may not wrap up everything neatly, but it ends the film on its most emotionally powerful moment. This leaves you feeling the full weight of the movie's impact right when the end credits start to roll. Afterall the main goal of any work of cinema (from popcorn movies to arthouse cinema) is emotion and this is the main takeaway anyone should have from a movie.

A must watch.  

 

 

Movie Review: The Furious

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent action flick.

This film's basic storyline about a man setting out to find and take down the people who kidnapped his young daughter will be quite familiar to pretty much anyone who watches movies. And it is also true that you will know exactly where this movie is going at many times. However as familiar as this movie is in many ways, it still exceptionally well done. 

The action scenes are phenomenal. Perfectly blending martial arts films with a John Wick level of destruction and violence, these scenes are a joy to watch. They feel larger than life at many times and each new action scene seems to build upon and top the last. In the style of the best action movies, the action is not just violent but also quite creative. This creativity and playfulness run throughout and no action scene ever repeats the ones before it. The fight chorography is perfect, and every action scene is perfectly shot as well. Any real action fan will love this movie. 

The characters may not be complex, but they do their jobs very well. We care about the characters we are supposed to care about and hate the characters we are supposed to hate. Because of this we actively root for our heroes and hiss our villains throughout. 

The story while familiar unfolds at a fast pace and is never once boring. 

A treat for action fans. 

Movie Review: I Love Boosters

 

Michael's Movie Grade: D-

An unfunny and obnoxious satire.

In this film, a group of women rob clothing stores and sell the clothes they steal at discount prices calling it a community service. When a clothes designer insults them on TV, they set out for personal vengeance. 

This is a strong premise that is capable of being either a fun heist film or a biting political commentary. While there are moments of both shown here, they are ultimately drowned out by an overabundance of absurdist comedy. Making this worse is that none of the humor is actually funny. Writer/director Boots Riley's approach to comedy here is to simply throw everything including the kitchen sink at the audience. The result is a film that is bizarre and surreal but never actually funny. It seems like we are supposed to find these moments funny simply because of how weird and over the top they are. It sadly does not work this way, and I did not laugh once watching this movie. The audience in the theater with me laughed a few times but were silent through most of the movie. This is a problem when there is an absurd gag nearly every second. Neither is this comedy ever well utilized in the story or the political commentary. Often times humor can make a political point stronger by pointing out the absurdity of what is happening in the world. That is definitely not the case here. The absurdist humor has little to do with the political message and more often simply distracts from it. Sometimes it seems like just when the movie is actually going to say something worthwhile, it instead hints at something profound before going back to the unrelated absurdist humor. The few times it actually says something, there is no subtlety or nuance to the way the message is conveyed. 

Another major flaw of this film is that Boots Riley seems more interested in ideas than characters or story. It doesn’t matter if these are political ideas or ideas for gags, they still take precedence over telling a good (or even coherent) story or having engrossing characters. As such it is hard to muster any emotional connection to anything happening onscreen, 

I loved Boots Riley's first movie Sorry to Bother You (2018). That movie was smart, thought-provoking, funny and wildly funny. Sadly, his sophomore effort is none of those things.    

Movie Review: Corporate Retreat

 

Michael's Movie Grade: F

An embarrassingly bad horror-comedy. 

In this film, a young woman ends up being dragged along to a corporate retreat by her boyfriend. This corporate retreat ends up being very dangerous as it is being arranged by a mentally unstable former CEO.

For being a horror-comedy, there is not one thing about this movie that is either funny or scary. Instead, this is one of the most unpleasant movies, I have seen in a long time. It simply lingers on extremely gory scenes that have no point except to be gory. This gory is too realistic and disturbing to be any fun but the story line is too silly for the gore to add any sense of realism. All that is left is pointless scenes that are simply very disturbing and hard to watch. The movie then becomes an endurance test for audiences. I wanted to get up and leave the theater many times. Story-wise this film is no better. The plot seems like it wants to make some sort of point about corporate America. However, whatever point it wants to make is completely lost in a nonsensical story and hopelessly inept dialogue. Telling this story the movie is constantly shifting tones in such a clumsy way that you are unsure how serious or not serious you are supposed to be taking anything. Regardless of how you take it, it is impossible to have any emotional connection to anything going on. The characters are all bland stereotypes that are never likable, relatable or enjoyable. 

The closest thing this movie has to something making it worth watching is the performance by Alan Ruck as the villain. Alan Ruck seems to know he is in a bad movie here and just decides to ham it up. The result is the only thing that is somewhat fun to watch here. 

Simply avoid this.   

Movie Review: Is God Is

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent thriller. 

In this film, two sisters are on a quest for revenge. They plan to kill their father who tried to kill them and their mom when they were kids. 

This is a dark and tense ride that makes you feel uncomfortable in all the best ways. There have been many movies that have looked at how seeking revenge and the trail of violence it leaves can change a person. However, this film handles it especially well. You can not only feel and understand what makes them go down this dark path. You can also see how this path of revenge affects these two different characters. Though they are both twins who have lived, struggled and survived together while sharing everything, these are still two very different people. We can see the differences in their personalities from the opening scene. One has a massive chip on her shoulder and wants to take it out on the world, while the other simply wishes she could live a normal life. When you see the way that this plays out, the changes in these characters don't come out from thin air. Rather it simply expands on what was already there. The effect is something more shocking and real than many films that deal with a similar theme. This is all helped by the wonderful chemistry Kara Young and Mallori Johnson. They perfectly capture the deep sisterly bond between the two and capture how they can almost bond as one at times, while still having distinct personalities. Also excellent, if in the film for a briefer time is Sterling K. Brown as the father. How calm he is and how he outwardly appears like a nice easy-going guy makes him all the more terrifying. It also speaks to how people like this really are (toxic abusive, violent men) often feel that their terrifying acts are called for because they actually believe that being a man means they have a God given power to do whatever they want with women's lives. This not only makes him scary but provides some real social commentary without ever feeling preachy. All this leads up to a truly shocking and effective ending.

Unfortunately, what keeps this film from being the masterpiece it should be is that it insists on mixing its dark subject matter with some quirky comedy. The comedy is only occasionally funny (often it simply tries too hard) and never meshes with the darker and more serious scenes. This can make this feel like two movies at odds with one another. Luckily one of those movies is fantastic. 

Despite an uneven tone, this film is an excellent thriller and a great character study. 

  

Movie Review: In the Grey

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C-

A serviceable but unremarkable action flick. 

This rather standard action flick is greatly helped by Guy Ritchie's direction. As most of us know, Guy Ritchie is simply an excellent action director. This movie lets him really show his stuff. The action scenes are pure treats. They are fun, stylish and very well paced. Putting these action scenes against such beautiful settings makes them even more visually appealing. Adding to the fun is the typically fun Guy Ritchie dialogue and a great cast (headed by Eiza González, Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhall). 

However, the movie does can like Guy Ritchie is on autopilot. The storyline isn't bad, but it is one you have seen a million times before. Nothing new or particularly interesting is done with this only serviceable plot. The characters are so underdeveloped that I can't describe their personalities to you because they are unburdened by such things.   

While it does have some stylish charm, there is nothing here to make it stand out. This is one of those films that you will forget about in a few weeks. 

 

Movie Review: Mortal Kombat II

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C+ 

An enjoyable video game adaptation.

Like the video game franchise, it is based on, the story is hard from this movie's focus. The storyline is as cliché as can be and feels very rushed as if the filmmakers can't wait to get to the next action scene. This can sadly lead to many character arcs feeling like they happen way too hastily. 

 Lucky the action scenes are fantastic. They are very well choreographed, paced and filled with delightfully over the top gore. This is the type of gore that is so over the top that instead of repulsive it comes off as fun. There is even a certain amount of creativity that goes into these violent deaths. 

Adding to the fun is Karl Urban as Johnny Cage. Karl Urban gives his all to this role and he is very entertaining to watch. It of course doesn't hurt that this character is given some of the best lines and funniest moments. 

 Adeline Rudolph also stands out as fan favorite Kitana, even if her storyline is underdeveloped and again rushed. 

This may be far from a great movie but it is fun and should delight fans of the video game franchise. 

Movie Review: Fuze

 

Michael's Movie Grade: D+ 

Thriller has lots of twists and turns but little reason to care.

In this film, an unexploded WWII era bomb is discovered underneath a construction site. However, there may be more than meets the eye going on here.

This is a movie, I wished I liked more than I did. It is rare to find a modern movie that keeps surprising me with every twist and turn. I can honestly say that I never really knew where this plot was going. So why didn't I actually care for the film then. The answer is simply that I was never given a reason to care about anything that happened on screen. This movie is full of characters and often cuts back and forth between them. With its complex plot and 97-minute runtime, we end up barely knowing anything about who these characters are. Thinking back on the film as I write this review, I not only can't remember most of the characters' names, but I can't recall much of any personality any of them have. All these characters seem to be defined by the roles they play in the story and at the end of the day, they are not characters as much as they are plot devices. Even a strong cast, cannot make me care about any of these characters. The result is that with each twist and turn that happened, I felt no connection to what was happening on screen. I even found that my mind began wandering during scenes that I knew were supposed to be exciting. When the ending came, I simply found I had no investment in what was obviously supposed to be a shocking twist. 

A very underwhelming film. 

Movie Review: One Spoon of Chocolate

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C-

This thriller starts strong but unfortunately falters out as it goes along. 

In this film a young black man goes to live with his cousin in a small town in Idaho after getting out of jail. He wants just to live peacefully and leave his past behind him. Unfortunately, a group of white supremacists decide to make life a living hell for him. 

After an unnecessarily gratuitously violent opening, this movie does a very good job creating an emotional connection between you and the main character. From the second you meet him you are set up to have sympathy for him. He fought for his country; he cares deeply about what is right and wrong and he is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. He has been in jail for fighting a man who was beating his wife in fact. Added to this is that Shameik Moore is very charming and charismatic in the role. With our emotional connection this becomes a fairly strong if familiar drama about systematic racism, the treatment of veterans and corruption in law enforcement.

 However sadly this can't last. The movie soon becomes bogged down in an orgy of sex, violence and clichés. As the movie goes along, the violence and sex simply become gratuitous. Many scenes are not simply violent but repulsively gory for the sake of being repulsively gory. This movie would have lost nothing if it just simply cut away and left some of these gory scenes to our imagination. As the storyline and the action get increasingly over the top, the extremely realistic violence feels more and more out of place. The sex is just unnecessary. Many women are reduced to sex objects in many scenes that simply feel here to make this already very adult movie feel edgy. I am not squeamish or a prude but much of the sex and violence in this movie simply serves no purpose but shock value. Worse than this the social commentary and the characters often take a back seat to this shock value as the film continues. About halfway through this film, if not before then, everyone knows exactly what direction the story is going. However, as the film takes its time to get to the inevitable conclusion, the audience becomes impatient for what they know will happen to happen.

 I will admit though that when we get to the big, expected climax, it is quite well done though. 

It is sad when a movie that starts out quite strong, turns into something not so great. Unfortunately, that is the case here.        

Movie Review: Mother Mary

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An absorbing surreal drama. 

This film has a popstar about to make her debut comeback but uncomfortable with the dress she is to wear. She goes back to her old designer to have her make a dress last minute. However, the two have old wounds that still hurt.

The magic of this movie comes directly from our two main characters. Even with the supernatural elements and larger than life musical numbers, this relationship remains the main focus of the film. Though it is not clear if that relationship was romantic or a friendship, but it is obvious that their former relationship was much closer than singer and designer. One can see in each scene the pain that each of them feels as the other comes back into their life and underneath the pain, one can also see that they still care about each other in a way. At the same time this film shows how multiple people go to create the image of a popstar, yet only the popstar gets credit for this and how this can lead to division between the star and the other creatives. This emotionally complex relationship is not easy to convey but director/writer David Lowery (who I was already a fan of due to The Green Knight (2021), The Old Man and the Gun (2018) and Pete's Dragon (2016)) and actresses Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel (who often steals the show here and who also gives another great performance in The Christophers (which is also currently and theaters) capture it perfectly down to the smallest nuance. The film has many scenes focusing on just these two characters talking. In lesser hands these talky scenes could have come off as boring. However here they come off as fully gripping. 

Naturally being a film where one of the main characters is popstar, there have to be some song performances. These performances are a visual treat with excellent chorography and lighting. Many of her fans refer to the popstar's concerts as almost a religious experience. The performances do feel larger than life enough to make us understand this. The songs (co-written by popstar Charli XCX and Jack Antonoff (member of the pop-rock band Fun and a songwriter that has worked with such real popstars as Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter)) would fit perfectly into playlists of real-life popstars. While this is far from my taste in music, I can definitely appreciate the artistry that went into these songs and performances. However, I do feel sometimes that these performances kind of interrupted the flow of the story for me.    

While the early scenes in this film are quite grounded, the movie does take a turn in a supernatural direction as it goes on. There are a few scenes that do a good job leading up to this, such as a dance number without music that often looks like a demonic possession, but the change to a supernatural story does lead to some less than perfect tonal shifts. This is especially true with a few (surprisingly pretty creepy) scenes that feel straight out of a horror movie. These scenes just simply feel out of place with the character driven drama that made up most of the film. 

What is very well done about the supernatural elements is that they are kept purposefully vague. They are never fully explained and have multiple ways that audience members can interpret them. All of these interpretations are equally valid. 

All in all this is an excellent, if sometimes flawed, film.