DUNKIRK review

Christopher Nolan has had quite an interesting film career. On the whole, I generally enjoy his films. He can get a little pretentious at times. Yet he’s a fantastic filmmaker and takes his craft seriously. The one area I would say he generally struggles in is the emotion behind a film. He’s so focused on the craft and message of the film that he overlooks the heart of the film. And the one time where the heart mattered the most, INTERSTELLAR, I felt he kind of dropped the ball. That being said, he did kind of nail it several years before then with THE PRESTIGE.

DUNKIRK is easily Nolan’s simplest film. I don’t meant that in a bad way, at all. Nolan decides to just tell this story without much flare which really works. There’s barely even a score. It’s one track that stretches throughout the entirety of the film sinking and rising when the situation changes. Something I felt fit incredibly well with the tone of this WWII film.

Nolan’s sensibilities really work for DUNKIRK. It’s a film that is all about survival in a hopeless situation. Based off the real-life event in May of 1940 where 400,000 British and French men were surrounded with no way to get home. They’re basically fish in a shooting barrel. Nolan did say that he didn’t want to tell an actual account of what happened but more of give an experience of what it was like. After doing a little bit of research on what in the movie is true and not, Nolan apparently did a pretty damn good job.

We follow three stories. Three civilians heading to Dunkirk to escort the stranded men, three pilots of the Royal Air Force, and one infantry trying to get off the Dunkirk shore. Normally I want to have an emotional connection with the characters in the film so I can have some sort of investment in what’s going on in the movie. I couldn’t tell you a single character’s name even having just seen this movie less than an hour before writing this. I don’t know who these people are, what their story before this is, who they have waiting for them, anything. Yet I was still invested.Not because I wanted these specific characters to live. But because I could get a sense of how horrific everything happening to them was. I felt sorry for them.

This is largely due to the fact that what Nolan lacks in emotional storytelling he makes up for in technical storytelling. He’s got an insane attention to detail. For these men, this was a hopeless endeavor. There was very little any one person could do. Even when they think they might be on their way out things would go wrong and they’d be either dead or right back where they started. Simply being able to follow these people, especially the infantry who’s doing so much only to accomplish so little, really gets you involved.

One of my favorite little things Nolan does is he never shows a single enemy soldier. We see a few planes, but no people. He hear gunshots, bombs, see people getting shot and blown up. But we never see the faces of those who did it. Add that with the opening scene of a bunch of flyers literally falling from the sky telling everyone how screwed they are and the enemy comes across as truly ominous.

At a relatively short runtime of 1 hour and 46 minutes there’s little time for rest. This, I’m sure, is by design as Nolan really wanted to recreate the experience of being at Dunkirk. You couldn’t rest. At any moment the enemy could decide to drop some more bombs or they could breach the barricades and you’ll be on the wrong end of a shooting gallery. Right from the start you never feel at ease and that sense of dread continues on until, and even beyond the end credits.

Every moment is visually exciting and nerve-wracking. I’ll go as far as to say this is a technical masterpiece. I believe I remember reading someone comparing this to Hitchcock. I can’t say that guy was too far off. DUNKIRK truly puts you on the shores with the men trapped back in 1940. While I didn’t get to know anyone on a personal level I definitely could empathize with everyone who was there. And I think that is what Nolan was going for.

9/10

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING review

Spider-Man has had a very wild cinematic life. Since 2002 there are now 3 different versions of Peter Parker and Spider-Man. While there’s a lot to like in both Sam Raimi’s and Marc Webb’s versions of Spider-Man (I think Raimi had better movies but Andrew Garfield in Webb’s was the better Peter and Spider-Man), I don’t think either versions really got the complete package. Most recently, Sony really messed up with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 which was way too busy trying to set up an extended universe than making a good movie. Fans voiced how disappointed they were and as a result, Marvel and Sony came up with a deal to allow the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to join Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. And he made his appearance in Civil War and people lost their minds.

I’ll just get it out of the way, this is the best Spider-Man yet. It’s not even a question. Most people claim Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is not only the best Spider-Man but one of the best superhero movies of all time. I used to agree with that until I rewatched it recently and realized that a lot of things in that movie are just silly or don’t make any sense. But I digress. Spider-Man: Homecoming the best Spider-Man movie and one of the best in the MCU.

One of the best things Homecoming has going for it is we don’t have to do the whole origin story again. Everyone already knows Spider-Man’s origin so we do not need to go through it again. We’ve already established Peter and Spider-Man in Civil War so we can move on from there. And it works. Spider-Man has been around for a while. The people of New York are kind of bored of it already. I love how people in New York see Spider-Man, call out to him, then just go back to their daily lives. As much as I like the majority of the MCU movies it is refreshing to not have to go through yet another “this is how the hero became the hero.”

How this also helps Homecoming is it takes out a lot of the moodiness and depression out of a Spider-Man movie. Peter Parker has a tough life. His story is filled with death and dread. But Peter does a great job of maintaining a happy-go-lucky outlook on life. And FINALLY we get that in a movie. Peter is stoked to be Spider-Man. He loves it. It’s a great juxtaposition to the majority of the MCU who feel their powers are either a burden, a curse, or just something they don’t want. Nothing is more exciting to Peter than being Spider-Man. And it makes it fun for us to watch Peter be Spider-Man.

This also plays into Peter’s character arc. We must remember, Peter is still in high school. And he actually looks like he’s a high schooler. In a school that feels like a real high school with other kids who feel like real high school kids. Peter is a kid with these incredible powers that he doesn’t yet have the maturity to know how to handle it. Then you add in the suit that Tony Stark gave him in Civil War and you’re giving a kid the keys to a Ferrari before he even got his driver’s license. And Peter makes mistakes. He’s so eager to help out that he doesn’t realize that he is just a kid and in way over his head. This does lead him getting into some serious trouble and puts others in danger. Luckily, Tony is there to help out a few times. Luckily this doesn’t feel like it’s forced. It’s set up quite nicely and does work quite well.

Speaking of Tony, one thing a lot of people were worried about was how involved Tony Stark and Ironman would be in Spider-Man’s movie. This is supposed to be Peter’s movie but the trailers were showing an awful lot of Tony. I’m happy to say that Tony is in here just enough. Since we aren’t getting yet another Uncle Ben, Tony Stark has become the new fatherly figure in Peter’s life. It works incredibly well not just in the bigger picture of the MCU but for this movie on its own. At no point does Stark’s presence become overbearing or intrusive. He only shows up when he needs to and leaves no later than his welcome demands. It’s easily the best use of character crossover used in the MCU yet. Same goes for the Captain America videos the high school uses. Those were quite brilliant.

What isn’t so brilliant is the use of the love interest. Actually, the love interest is used well, but the love interest herself is pretty boring. It’s not a knock on the actress who plays Liz, she does a fine job. It’s just that she doesn’t have much personality and she’s really only in the movie to be motivation for Peter. There is a well-written female character, Michelle played by Zendaya, who might be my favorite character. But she’s barely in the film. She pops up every now and then to make a snarky quip and give some nice relief to a scene. I’m pretty sure she will be a bigger part of future Spider-Man films. In fact, I’ll put money on that.

One of the biggest problems in the MCU has easily been the villains. Take a moment and try to describe a villain from the MCU. Other than Loki. Go ahead. I’ll wait…

Spider-Man: Homecoming finally gives the MCU a good villain. Adrian Toomes, played fantastically by Michael Keaton, is not only a very menacing villain but he’s relatable. You understand him and what he’s trying to do and even sympathise with him in a way. He’s an everyman. A guy who was just trying to make an honest living before things are taken away from him and he’s forced to go in an unfortunate direction. And without giving too much away he single handedly gives one of the most tense scenes in the entire MCU.

I’ve been praising this movie a lot but I do have one really big complaint. There’s a really annoying cliché where if character just listened to someone than something bad could have been avoided. There are two really big set pieces that could have been completely avoided had someone just listened to Peter’s warning. I hate this cliché so much. They do have a nice flip on this for one set piece, but it also suffers from lack of communication between characters. So, 3 of the big set pieces could have been completely avoided had characters actually listened to each other.

Other than that, my other main grip is that at no point did I feel a strong emotional moment that sucked me in. But I did feel at time that Spider-Man was in genuine trouble. I had enough emotional investment to care about the characters. Just enough. But most of all Spider-Man: Homecoming knows how to have fun. The action is well staged and exciting if a tad overblown in the finally with some slightly distracting physics issues (they establish something then immediately forget about it less than 2 minutes later) and the comedy is gut-busting. I can remember 3 big moments off the top of my head that had the entire theatre roaring.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is my favorite Spider-Man movie yet and one of the best in the MCU. It’s a near perfect Spider-Man film even if it has some slight missteps. But almost everything is forgivable since there’s so much charm and it’s just a blast to watch. I saw it in IMax 3D but the 3D really didn’t add anything to the film. Nor did the IMax format. There were a few IMax sequences but I don’t think it really helped the film much. I can’t wait to see this again. Definitely going to make my top 10 this year. Quite possibly my top 5.

9.5/10

BABY DRIVER review

Edgar Wright is my favorite working director. It’s not even a question. Wright just has an eye for the visual part of filmmaking that I feel isn’t appreciated as much as it should be. Movies are such a visual medium to tell a story yet now days too many films rely too much on dialogue to move the story along or give exposition. Or they hand off action sequences and travelling montages to the second unit and they feel more like filler than an actual part of the story. Edgar Wright makes sure every second of the film has purpose. His scripts are tight and he’s really in touch with that visual aspect of filmmaking more so than any director in the business today.

I won’t waste any time. BABY DRIVER is my favorite film this year. Edgar Wright has yet to make anything less than a great movie. This review is going to be me gushing about this film for several paragraphs about the various aspects of the film that filled me with pure joy.

Before I begin praising BABY DRIVER, I do have one complaint. The female characters are very few and underwritten. I wouldn’t say they’re poorly written. But they just aren’t given a whole lot to do. Baby’s main love interest, Debora, is a fun and fleshed out character. But she really seems more like she’s just here to give Baby something to work towards rather than anything else. Lily James does a fantastic job with the character. She’s funny and charismatic enough to root for her and Baby (played by Ansel Elgort). And there are a few moments in the film where she does help with the action. But overall I feel there isn’t a whole lot for her to do. The other main female character is Elza Gonzalez’s Darling. She’s part of the heist crew and Buddy’s (Jon Hamm) significant other. She’s pretty badass but not in the film enough to be fleshed out much. It’s a small complaint, but it is something I did notice while watching the film. Luckily, this is really the only knock I have.

OK, now that that’s out of the way. This movie is awesome! I almost don’t know where to begin. But I’ll start with the soundtrack. Wright has such a clever way to incorporate a soundtrack into BABY DRIVER. Most movies just pick cool songs to fit what’s going on with the film. Most of the time the music is chosen in post production. Wright writes the soundtrack into the script. Every song is part of the story and structure to the film. So much so that the action beats are in sync with the soundtrack. Cuts match beats of the song. Gunshots match snare drums.

There’s a great tracking shot in the beginning of the movie of Baby dancing down the street to a song and I noticed one of those fliers on a telephone pole with lyrics to the song. I thought it was cool, but then the shot and the song went on I noticed even more lyrics popping up in frame. It’s subtle enough where if you’re not looking for it you could completely miss it. But once I saw it, every time it came up it made me smile. There’s even a part where Baby tells the crew to wait to do their heist because he has to restart the song and has them start once he gets the music in sync with the action.

Speaking of action… Edgar Wright knows how to do action in film. I believe Wright actually works with the second unit rather than the second unit just taking over for the action sequences. Every bit of action fits the aesthetic of the film and has purpose behind every shot. Not tight close ups or quick edits to hide what’s going on. You see and feel everything… unless it was purposely put out of view for a storytelling reason. And when you bring on stunt coordinator and second unit director

Darrin Prescott, the man who did the same job for both John Wick movies, you really want to see the action!

What’s more is all the bits of action help develop both the story and the characters. It’s not action for action's sake. Everything reveals something about the characters involved or pushes the plot further. This really pulls you into the action for more than just spectacle, which the movie does not lack. And this isn’t Transformers where the action is grand and massive yet there doesn’t feel like there’s any real stakes since everyone seems indestructible aside from when the plot says so.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so nervous during an action set piece as I did in Baby Driver. I mean, yeah, I know everything is going to be OK. But in the moment, I actually felt nervous. I haven’t felt that in years. I watch so many movies every year. Basically two or three every weekend. As much as I love Mad Max and the Fast and Furious franchise, none of them actually made me feel as anxious as I did in BABY DRIVER. It’s a feeling I miss having.

That’s what matters most to me in a movie. How the film makes me feel. Does it make me feel at all? I was going through all different emotions during BABY DRIVER. Joy, anger, fear, anxiety, relief. Part of that anxiety came from how cleverly written the movie was. Many times it feels like it could easily fall into these action movie tropes but cleverly side steps them. I gave up guessing what was going to happen next because I couldn’t. And I was so happy with how Wright decided to end the film. It’s far from cliche and fits right into the natural progression of the story. It also gives a chance to make a lot of the tiny little decisions that the characters make through the film pay off in a gratifying way.

As I’m finishing up writing this, I’m getting ready to head out to see it again. Go watch this movie! Please! BABY DRIVER is incredibly original and so much fun. I want to see it do well in the box office so we can get more movies like this to be made. Go watch it now! Even with my one complaint, this is easily my favorite movie of the year. Quite possibly in my top 10 of the decade. GO SEE IT NOW!

10/10

THE MUMMY (2017) review

Every studio now is trying to copy Marvel’s formula of making a shared universe for their films in hopes of creating a franchise. Warner Brothers is trying to play catch up with their DCEU which has been really bad up until WONDER WOMAN. Warner Brothers is also going with Legendary for their kaiju universe starting with KONG: SKULL ISLAND -- technically, GODZILLA, but KONG was the one that really pushed the universe further. And now Universal is trying their second attempt at doing their Dark Universe for the supernatural beings. Think if VAN HELSING was a movie universe instead of just one movie. DRACULA UNTOLD was supposed to be the start, but that failed so they’re retying. For better and worse, Universal is stuck with THE MUMMY. Right at the beginning they’re showing off their shiny new Dark Universe logo to fully commit.

THE MUMMY I can’t really say is disappointing because I wasn’t really expecting much to begin with. Yet it managed to both exceed and fall short of expectations. The major problem with trying to push for a shared universe before you even get one film out is you’re immediately going to have to set up a lot of things. The perfect example of a movie being too preoccupied with setup rather than the movie at hand is IRON MAN 2. And THE MUMMY feels even worse than that.

It takes a while to actually get to Nick (Tom Cruise) and Vail (Jake Johnson) it starts to be fun. The two of them are funny and have nice chemistry. I would have really liked a movie with those two guys in their adventures. But I already knew it wasn’t this film and got kind of upset. I can see the movie with just those two being a lot of fun. And it was while it lasted. But then the mummy stuff starts to happen and that movie goes byebye. After that, it’s kind of a slog.

Nick was quick to jump on board with things being weird. Usually in these monster movies you spend half of the second act trying to convince the straight character that things are supernatural or out of the ordinary. But (not a spoiler, it happens in the trailer) dying in a plane crash then waking up will really put things into perspective. They even play it for laughs a bit. There’s a couple of legitimately good jokes out of this.  

This, however, highlights probably the biggest problem of the film. It has no idea what kind of tone it wants. First it’s a serious film. Then it’s a goofy action-adventure film with Nick and Vail. Then it’s serious. Then it’s a horror film. Then there’s comedy. Then back to serious. Then exposition dump. Then really dark. Then silly. Then serious again… Much like it trying to juggle the Dark Universe building and the story it can’t handle all these different tones. Not only does it play to the detriment of THE MUMMY but it doesn’t give much hope for future Dark Universe films.

Which sucks because I really liked Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll. This isn’t really a spoiler as arrives before Tom Cruise does. Crowe plays the character(s) fantastically and it really got me excited to see his movie later on down the line. I kind of like how they just have him as part of the universe from the get-go. I think it’s better than to just reveal him at a later point and just expect us to just acknowledge he was here the whole time. But using him as an exposition dump isn’t the best way to do it. Spider-Man 2 did a much better job of setting up Dr. Connors and The Lizard. They didn’t build him up, they just had him be a supporting character that Peter runs into. They acknowledge him as part of the universe without drawing attention to him. Unfortunately that ultimately didn’t lead anywhere, but it’s a better way to do it.

One other thing I have to mention… Egyptians are getting screwed by Hollywood. Between EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS, GODS OF EGYPT, and now THE MUMMY, Americans must think Egyptians were a bunch of white dudes. Think about that for a moment. Egyptians, white people in the desert before sunscreen was invented… Yeah, right.

Honestly, I find it hard to talk about this movie. There’s not much to say. It’s got a ton of problems and a few good things here and there. But worst of all is that it’s just plain boring. There’s a lot of spectacle but it’s hollow. Even with some genuinely funny, albeit jarring, jokes it’s not enough to recommend viewing this movie for anything other than Russell Crowe’s performance as Dr. Jekyll. But that’s definitely not worth the price of admission. Go watch WONDER WOMAN or CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS instead.

4.5/10

WONDER WOMAN review

The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) has been on the bad end of plenty of criticism and outright hate. A lot of it is justified with the movies thus far being varying degrees of bad. Some are on both sides of MAN OF STEEL while pretty much the majority of everyone really disliked SUICIDE SQUAD (one of the worst edited films I’ve ever seen) and BATMAN V. SUPERMAN. Needless to say, many weren’t really hopeful for WONDER WOMAN. I was cautiously optimistic. And while it doesn’t really do much as far as giving me hope for future DCEU films, it does a pretty good job at being a solid film on its own.

Right off the bat WONDER WOMAN has me worried. We’re starting off in a scene that takes place in Snyder’s universe. It’s more or less an expansion of a scene from BvS to set up WW’s story. It doesn’t really not work. But it also doesn’t really add much to the film. It pretty much just means that everything that’s about to happen is flashback.

Once we do start actually telling the story of Diana’s origin things pick up. There’s an explosion of bright colors which is quite appropriately almost completely separate from everything going on in the Snyderverse. It’s incredibly vibrant and got me excited. Even if young Diana’s actress is one of the worst child actors I’ve ever seen, I wasn’t too worried at this point. And she’s not really in the film much (thank god). Shots of the landscape of the island and the people are gorgeous and set up the world quite nicely. Fortunately the visual storytelling is on point because the dialogue is lackluster even with some nice performances. We truly get a sense of how badass the women on this island are and how Diana is growing up to even better than the rest of them.

Chris Pine enters the film to push us closer to the second act and into our first set piece. A lot of exceptionally creative acrobatic choreography and cinematography were put into this scene. With all the setup to how badass the Amazons are it was almost satisfying to see them live up to that build up. Unfortunately the over-editing becomes quite annoying as this beautiful sequence is blemished. It doesn’t make it a bad scene. But it could have been way better and more exciting. Luckily this is the worst of it as far as overdoing it goes… OK… I lied. But I’ll get to that later.

I know this is Diana’s movie -- it is called WONDER WOMAN after all-- but Gal Gadot can’t hold a candle to Chris Pine. Their chemistry is great and you believe their relationship throughout the film. Chris Pine really elevates this film to higher level. Pine’s character never overshadows Diana, but Pine does more for the movie in terms of relating to the audience and connecting us to this world. Gadot’s not the best actor, but I’d say her decent talents lend quite well to Diana’s naivety…

Oh yeah, once we leave the island this turns into somewhat of a fish-out-of-water story. I know it really shows off just how different Diana’s principles and morals are to us humans. But the whole fish-out-of-water thing is one of my least favorite tropes. But I will say it never becomes too annoying. Oh, it’s definitely annoying. But never unbearable. It does allow us to see Diana grow.

What does make this annoying trope work much better in WONDER WOMAN than most other movies is how Diana pushes back instead of just accepting everything she’s being surrounded by. This movie taking place in WWI and Diana obvious being a woman sets up quite a few great moments of breaking against the social norms in fantastic ways. Even calling out a lot of the silliness of gender roles without being too brazen about it. There’s even a great jab at Hollywood’s lack of diversity with not just sex but race.

Without giving too much away, there’s a fantastic moment where everything is holding her back and she just can’t be held back any longer. It’s not only a turning point in the film, but in the story of every single person in that moment of the film. It’s one of the most brilliant moments of the film with some of the most badass imagery I’ve seen all year. Remember how I said how bad the editing was in the first set piece? Yeah, they fixed that. At this point I was completely on board. I was getting excited and really enjoying myself. It made me look past most of the problems going on to this point.

It was also at this point I was kind of realizing how similar to CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER this second act was. I don’t really want to get into pointing fingers or making jokes but it does really seem like DC really took some notes (probably much more than just notes) from Marvel during this second act. Super hero with a shield. Check. World War setting. Check. Band of misfits. Check. Luckily this doesn’t last too long. Closer to the third act it does hit more of its own strides then completely does its own thing in the third act.

*inhales*

*exhales*

Oh boy…

I’ll just come out and say it, the third act is a mess. A complete mess. There’s some fantastic moments in here including an awesome close-quarters fight and great acting by Chris Pine. Diana’s character comes to a fantastic arc and there’s a moment where I almost, ALMOST, felt some emotional resonance. But holy hell did all the movie’s problems come on full display here.

You may have noticed by now I haven’t mentioned a few things such as villains or side characters. Other than the Amazons in the opening, no one other than Diana or Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor are really that memorable. I did like one of the members of the “band of misfits” gathered up. But I can’t even remember his name. One note I really wish WONDER WOMAN didn’t take from the MCU was bad villains. It’s not bad enough that these are mustache-twirling evil bad guys, but we get that inane “Oh, that wasn’t the real baddy, the real baddy is this guy right here who we didn’t really set up at all” trope. And I don’t feel bad for saying that because it’s almost impossible not to see coming.

I was more disappointed with how bad this third act is by how many great moments there are throughout the film. There’s some pretty bad things going on across the entire film but it’s mostly forgivable with not many of them standing out too much. Up to a point the good overshadows the shortcomings. I just wish it could have at least kept that up in the closing 20 minutes. It went from feeling like CAPTAIN AMERICA to feeling way too close to BATMAN V. SUPERMAN.

WONDER WOMAN could have been so much more. I’m not saying this in comparison to other comic book movies that are fantastic. There’s are flashes of brilliance that really show off that one of the three writers knew exactly what to do while the other two (one being Zack Snyder) didn’t quite get it. If that one person go to write the film on their own I’m sure that this could have been a glorious film. As is, however, I can’t say it’s anything more than just good. Disappointingly just good. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

7/10

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES review

I am a big PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN fan. I love the first movie. And I really like the second and third movies. I completely agree with C. Robert Cargill when he said that the trilogy that is like the modern-day INDIANA JONES. They’re both over-the-top B-action films with an iconic character that a generation latched onto. The first film is loved by the majority of people while the second and third are mixed with some loving and some hating them. Then both series got an unnecessary 4th film that were kind of meh. Now PIRATES has a 5th film. I’m happy to say that it’s much better than ON STRANGER TIDES.

What didn’t work for me in the 4th PIRATES movie was Jack Sparrow does not make a good protagonist. He’s a fantastic supporting character, but don’t make him the main hero of the film. DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES recognized this and decided to make 2 newcomers the main focus of the movie. There’s still a lot of Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa, but we’re mainly following Henry Turner, son of Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner, and Carina Smyth.

Even if you haven’t seen the first 3 films it does a great job of establishing how important this is for the main character. I wouldn’t really say this has sequel baggage. It does a great job of standing on its own legs. Although, really, this is basically the same plot as the previous films. Bad guy is angry at Jack Sparrow. Jack needs to find McGuffin to stop bad guy. Other people also want McGuffin for their own goals. They do shorten it up a bit. The movie’s only a little over 2 hours long when all the other films were at least 2 hours and 40 minutes. It shaved off a lot of the fat.

The story’s been done before but now we get a couple new characters to follow. They do tie into the first trilogy with who these characters are. But it definitely is a step in a direction I would like to see this series take in moving away from Jack Sparrow and all these established characters. More on that later. While these newbies do tend to get overshadowed by Depp and Rush, they still do a great job. There is still a lot of focus on Jack and Barbossa, but the story is still Henry’s and Carina’s. I enjoyed their characters enough to care. And by the end of the movie I felt something. Definitely something the 4th movie missed.

Action is one of the series strong points. DEAD MEN doesn’t disappoint with brilliantly staged and set up set pieces. While there isn’t really too much threat of characters not making it out alive in (most) of the series, it still manages to be very creative and entertaining. It does hearken to the old days of the silent film physical comedies stars like Chaplin. Even though a lot of the set pieces are flooded with CGI, there’s is quite a bit of practical physical comedy within these crazy romps.

Just like in previous films, DEAD MEN is beautiful. The visual design is impressive as ever. The special effects are great in most aspects of the film. Which kind of sucks because in all 4 of the previous ones the effects were fantastic all around. The villain characters all had amazing effects but a lot of the extra bits didn’t feel like they had the same care put into them. And there’s a scene with 3 dead sharks that looks pretty bad. And the 3D didn’t help at all…

Speaking of which, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE IN 3D! This was really hard for me. Most movies that play in IMax will have scene that are filmed in the larger IMax ratio. I mentioned this when reviewing GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. But DEAD MEN was filmed entirely on IMax. So the whole movie has the larger 1.9:1 ratio instead of the standard 2.35:1. So if you don’t see it in IMax, you’re missing part of the shots, but if you see it in IMax you have to watch it in 3D. And this movie is shot way too dark for the 3D to really work. I’m usually really good with 3D movies, but this one I noticed was pretty bad.

What I really want for this series to do is to move beyond Jack Sparrow. Or at least have less of him. I still like him as a character, but with so many legends and myths that surround pirates and the seas I feel keeping it with Jack can kind of narrow the focus. The world these films have built is fascinating and rich. I would love to keep returning to see what we can explore in the future.

DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES doesn’t quite make it to the greatness of the original trilogy. It definitely sails laps around the previous entry, though. And with a much shorter run time and being a somewhat stand alone film, it’s much easier to be an in-and-out film for those who want fun pirate action without having to sit through the intimidating length of the previous films. I proudly own the first 3 films. I have no desire to buy the 4th. I will be buying DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES later on.

7.5/10

Review also available HERE

ALIEN COVENANT review

ALIEN COVENANT is Ridley Scott apologizing for PROMETHEUS without fully making up for it. Scott has gone on record on saying that the fan feedback on PROMETHEUS affected how he approached COVENANT. Before I was incredibly excited to see Scott return to the ALIEN franchise. But with the overall “meh” feeling of PROMETHEUS, and an overabundance of smart people doing really stupid things, along with Ridley Scott having some sub-par movies lately, I was a little worried this would just be another entry into an all but dead franchise from a director who isn’t nearly as good as he once was. Luckily it wasn’t that bad. But it’s not good enough to completely turn me around on it, either.

To sum it up in one sentence, COVENANT feels like it’s trying to capture what made the good entries rather than push the series into a new direction. ALIEN is one of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time. Then ALIENS was one of the greatest sci-fi action movies of all time. And PROMETHEUS tried to tackle scientific/philosophical questions. From 1 to 2 and to PROMETHEUS, the direction of the series went in a completely new direction. It would have been completely acceptable for COVENANT to take things somewhere different. Instead, Scott tries juggle what made those three entries good. For most of the movie Scott does really well, but he does drop a few balls every so often.

I really liked how the characters were handled. Everyone is unique and has interesting personalities. I enjoyed my time with each character even if I didn’t quite get attached to each one of them. A great touch was making everyone in the movie married couples so when people do die it’s more impactful. I also really liked how not everyone is a scientist. This is a crew where everyone has a different role to play.

This idea also cuts back on my “Smart people doing stupid things” complaints. While some of these people do very stupid things, none of it seems like it was simply because it was for the plot but rather that’s their flaw as a character.

Remember when I said this movie tries to recapture what made previous films great? COVENANT tries to balance the horror of ALIEN, the action of ALIENS, and the philosophical questions of PROMETHEUS. I really like how COVENANT tries to be a smart sci-fi film rather than just be another exciting romp. There’s a lot of this I do enjoy but I feel it ultimately falls flat. Fortunately, the action and horror elements of the films are much better. While Scott’s films have been a bit iffy lately, he’s still great at directing. The horror elements did keep me on edge even if I never really felt truly scared. And the action sequences are really exciting and visually interesting. And If nothing else, COVENANT is beautiful.

For the most part I didn’t mind the use of CGI for this film. A lot of it is done really well, especially when enhancing the environments. Even a lot of the action sequences with the Xenomorph in full lighting, moving around at breakneck speeds, it looks good. It’s actually quite frightening how vicious the creature is and that’s something that couldn’t be done with practical effects. However, there are just as many scenes where the CG look awful as it does look good. Almost like there were 2 different teams working on the effects and one of those teams was understaffed.

For the first two acts of the film I was really diggin’ it. I loved the first act with the crew in space and how it establishes everything. The second act when everything starts going south was also greatly enjoyable and moves so quickly you almost can’t fully appreciate how good some of these bits are. There’s still some faults here and there but nothing really enough to ruin the experience. But the third act became really predictable and the ending almost made me feel cheated. They try to do a twist, I guess, but it’s so poorly hidden that you’d really have to be naive to fall for it. I caught it right away, but about 15 minutes before the reveal I heard a guy behind me sigh in realization of what was really going on. His groan of disappointment wasn’t because he figured it out too easily. But rather he was so invested in the characters that he knew something bad was going to happen. I guess with the series going from the past and heading towards the Alien movie it has to make things happen to lead to that. But even at the end of ALIEN COVENANT, I’m not sure they even know how to line everything up.

If nothing else, ALIEN COVENANT is an exciting sci-fi thriller. Great bits of action and horror balanced with at least an interest in asking greater questions. The series is no longer happy with just being fun movies. They want to be smart. And while I think it’s trying too hard for its own good, at least it’s trying. And most importantly, it wasn’t boring. Well worth the money to see it on the big screen. And I may be grabbing this on Blu-ray after the price drops.

7/10

Review also available HERE