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

THE WALL review

It’s a difficult thing to make a feature-length movie that takes place in one location and with few characters interesting. Most concepts that involve very few things going on can last for longer than 20 minutes. It might make a good YouTube video. But making it feel worthwhile to pay $12+ to watch 2 people interact with each other for 80+ minutes is hard. THE WALL, for the most part, does it pretty well. Think of it as a blend of PHONE BOOTH and BURIED. Quality definitely leads much more on the BURIED side.

THE WALL is about a sniper team played by John Cena, the sniper, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the spotter, who get called to investigate a distress call about a possible sniper in 2007 Iraq. Then things go sour. I mean, it wouldn’t really be a movie if something bad doesn’t happen. And without giving too much away, we spend the majority of our time with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as he tries to survive and get him and his buddy out before they both bleed out. Only problem is he’s stuck behind a wall and can’t move very well.

What really intrigues me is how a director approaches these small-scale movies. Doug Liman is known for pretty decent action films. He’s done THE BOURNE IDENTITY, MR. AND MRS. SMITH, and one of my personal favorites, EDGE OF TOMORROW. He’s not only good with action, but he’s smart. He knows how to handle characters and situations to make them likable and believable. This is something Liman would be great at…

For the most part, yes, he handles it incredibly well. But before I get about what works about this movie, I want to get what I didn’t like out of the way. I feel there’s a missed opportunity with the examination of the politics of the situation. We’re still going on with needless wars and having this set in Iraq AFTER President Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech, yet still having soldiers on the ground would have been great to examine why we remain in these places after we supposedly won. This is glossed over a little bit, but it really doesn’t hold much significance for anything. Aside from that, I mostly appreciate Liman holding back on his style, but the movie does get visually bland at times. There’s much more going on in THE WALL than there is in BURIED, but the latter does so much more visually with its limited space that sometimes THE WALL just seems kind of lazy.

I do greatly appreciate the narrowed scope of the film. With so many movies trying to go big and bold it’s nice to see things taken down several notches to something simple. There’s just enough in the beginning to feel like these two characters are good buddies and the banter between them is fun. I really wanted them to make it out alive. So when things start to get going I was tense the entire time. They get hurt. It’s much more personal and therefore more involving than something like TRANSFORMERS which is just way too big and loud to even care. And it’s also established very early on that there’s real danger. Something like TRANSFORMERS (again) really never makes it feel like the main characters are ever in real danger and so I don’t care.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the film is something I don’t really want to talk about because it is a spoiler. It’s a great way to make the film more interesting and entertaining and creates opportunities to explore the more political and emotional side of war. But it glances over these opportunities and mainly just serves to show us that surviving in a battle situation is HARD. And even though the decision with the ending is questionable -- it definitely made a few people in the theatre scoff in disappointment -- I still walked out liking the film. I probably won’t watch it again. But it’s worth seeing. Maybe go for the discount Tuesday.

6.75/10

Review also available here!

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 review

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is one of my favorite movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I loved the quirky, zany, almost Looney Toons vibe it had along with entertaining characters I could get attached to. The villain was incredibly bland and the third act of the film felt very by-the-numbers, grab the McGuffin so big bad can’t destroy the world, cliche Marvel ending. However it stepped above all the previous ones by having a great emotional moment and a clever undercut of the stand-off trope. Even with all that, it remained my favorite MCU film… until the sequel improved on everything I had problems with in the first film.

I’m not going to say GUARDIANS Vol. 2 is perfect. It’s still got some flaws. But it’s a near perfect sequel. Being a big James Gunn fan it’s great to see him get this big-budget property with a great amount of freedom. It’s kind of incredible with how the entirety of the MCU seems under such tight surveillance from the suits with everything having to fall in place to support the grand scheme. But because Guardians has such a niche following and is so obscure and literally in another galaxy from the rest of the MCU it seems the chains are off allowing Gunn to do what he does best: going completely off the walls.

Vol. 2 brings everything in for a smaller story than the first. This is a much more personal story for the team. And I do mean for the entire team. Trailers would suggest this is Star-Lord’s story. And while the plot certainly rides on Peter Quill’s story, there’s 2 other stories going on as well. All 3 of these storylines focus on family… And Vin Diesel’s in this movie… Family… Vin Diesel… There’s a joke here… Somewhere… eh, maybe I’ll think of it later… anyway…

You’d think with 3 stories going on with so many characters some of them would get lost in the shuffle. So many movies trying to cram this many people to follow tend to favor some at the expense of others… *cough*X-Men 3*cough* Excuse me. But somehow James Gunn pulls off an amazing juggling act having not just 2, 3, or 4, but 6 character arcs. SIX! You could even argue 7. Some were a little more fleshed out than others, but we get 7 characters that have a full arc in this movie. What makes this even more incredible is not a single one of them feels rushed or undeserved.

VOL 2 also improves on one of the biggest issues with the MCU, terrible villains. There are technically 3 villains in this movie and all of them are interesting in their own way. I don’t really want to give too much away, but the big bad of the main storyline, while not too fleshed out, does do enough to pull a lot of investment. Even though Gunn wanted a smaller story in scope than the first film he still manages to raise the stakes even higher making the importance of the victory we’re rooting for that much more important.

I want to take a moment to step back for a moment. Something I feel a lot of actions films today aren’t doing enough of is appreciating the quiet time. I’m also a gamer and this is a problem in action games as well. With these so-called “non-stop action” movies/games we can get exhausted with all the excitement. We get numb to the visceral overload and even though there’s a large quantity of exciting things going on we either don’t care or aren’t impressed by it because there’s so much fat. Gunn seems to know that this is not what you want so we get several scenes or quiet, open space through the film. It’s also a sign of Gunn’s growing confidence as a big-budget filmmaker being able to compose these brilliant shots of maybe just a single character with a lot open space. Taking full advantage of the IMax format, some of the most beautiful shots are these quiet time moments letting us reflect on what’s happened so far alongside these characters. Which also allows us to fully enjoy Gunn’s matured eye for action as well.

I did love the visual style of the first film but the action sequences felt lacking to me. Aside from the prison escape, Gunn seemed a bit too afraid in his ability to frame action. This certainly isn’t a problem anymore. About half of the big set pieces were filmed in the beautiful IMax format which allows Gunn to really wow us. Almost the entirety of the third act is filmed in the IMax format and is used to great effect. Every shot is composed well. Not a single moment was too shaky or too close to see what was going on. No editing was done with the intention to hide mistakes or laziness. You see everything. Not only does it just look great, but the action is derived from the story. Every little bit of action serves the story and moves things forward. But even if you’re not really here for the emotion, the spectacle is enough to stand on its own.

While all of this makes a better movie than the original, what really sold me was the emotion -- the characters. I cared for every single character in this movie. VOL 2 really tugged on my heartstrings a few times. Sure, some moments were kind of cheesy. Some of the dialogue did kind of get a little melodramatic or cliche. But it works for me. I cared about these characters enough to look past those small missteps. These are characters I enjoyed watching and made me laugh. Oh boy, did they make me laugh. Easily the funniest movie of the MCU. And easily the most likeable band of misfits on this side of the galaxy. I love this movie.

If you can, see this movie in IMax. The 3D is great, but there’s several scenes shot in the larger IMax format which are simply amazing. It’s worth the extra $5-10 to see the film in its true form.

Review also available HERE

MORGAN review

Sci-fi is one of my favorite genres. I can’t pinpoint when exactly it was that I started getting more on the nerdy side of the geek/nerd/dork spectrum, but I’ve generally kept a nice balance between 2 of them (geek and nerd). More so the science element of sci-fi. I like stories that take things that are not quite reality yet, but would be plausible if there were a few tweaks. Movies that tackle subjects like artificial intelligence (EX MACHINA, HER), the singularity (SYNC by CorridorDigital on YouTube), and space exploration (The first half both of INTERSTELLAR and PROMETHEUS), and so on, are always going to be something I look forward to. Needless to say I was excited when I saw that Luke Scott, son of legend Ridley Scott, was making a film about a bioengineered child becoming unstable. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like Luke has his father’s touch in filmmaking quite yet. This is his first full-length feature so he does have time to develop.

MORGAN has a nice visual style to it. A nice mix of high-tech equipment and a beautiful isolated house in the woods creates an atmosphere very reminiscent of EX MACHINA. I have to give props to the art direction for making the film at the very least visually interesting. Other than that, though, I can’t really say anything else stood out in a good or bad way.

For such a good cast of actors there’s only one performance I can say was more than just OK. And that’s Paul Giamatti. But that man’s never OK. No matter the movie, he gives his all and I love him for that. I was so happy when Paul came on screen to break the monotony of the first half. His performance is great but unfortunately he doesn’t stick around very long. It was kind of obvious he was just going to come in and get out quickly. Even his character says right after he arrives that he has to “make this quick” and “has somewhere to be.” Everyone else did OK but isn’t worth mentioning.

Another big disappointment with having many great actors like Kate Mara, Michelle Yeoh, and Toby Jones around is that none of the characters really feel like characters. They’re all unique, I’ll give the movie that much credit. We easily can tell who’s who and each has their own personality. But no one feels like they have much of a backstory to them. And if I were to try to describe them I’d just give you archetypes. That one’s the stuck up one who’s better than everyone and she knows it. That’s the non scientist surrounded by scientists. That’s the guy who takes has way too much pride in his work.That’s the boss of everyone who only shows up to make sure things are working properly.

Characters are always the most important thing in a movie for me. If I can’t emotionally connect with the characters then I have no personal investment in the plot. Because this movie is filled with archetypes instead of actual characters I was beginning to find myself very bored. Something sci-fi films can do for me better than most other genres is bring up themes and ideas that are so fascinating that they’re enough to keep me following along to see what it has to say. Unfortunately MORGAN doesn’t really know what it wants to say until the final act. And by then so much has already happened that it no longer really matters. And the twist of the film I saw coming a mile away.

I could just end the review here and call it a day. It’s hard to come up with too much to say about a movie that just leaves you feeling “meh” at the end. So, a few little musings while watching the film:

• For a group of scientists with high-tech equipment their webcam’s frame rates are terrible. It didn’t even look like it could do 20 fps. That really took me out of the movie even more.
• The bioengineered woman, Morgan, spends most of the time in a cell with glass windows and the scientists talk to her through the speakers. Several times they’ll be talking and the camera’s on Morgan’s side of the glass and we can hear the group. Then it’ll cut to the group in the same conversation and they’ll talk about something that you’d think they wouldn’t want Morgan to hear. But they never do anything to make is so she can’t.
• That deer looked fake as hell.
• There was a chance to do something cool with the reflections on the glass when characters talked to Morgan. Some sort of symbolism they could have gone for. Opportunity wasted.
• Brian Cox literally phones it in.
• I did kind of giggle at the cliché “I done goofed” look.
• Why doesn’t anyone ever know how to do a PIT maneuver?
• The fight choreography could have possibly been OK but I wouldn’t be able to tell you as I wasn’t able to really see it.

MORGAN could have been interesting if it had better laid out what it wanted to say earlier on and given us more depth to some of these characters. Maybe trim the cast down a little bit so there’s less focus to spread around. They’re not quite the same, but I would suggest checking out either EX MACHINA or SPLICE instead. I can’t really suggest you go see MORGAN even for a matinee.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Original post HERE

DON'T BREATHE review

I grew up watching horror movies. My mom was a huge fan of slasher flicks like NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and her favorite, HALLOWEEN. After I saw POLTERGEIST (against my mom’s wishes) when I was about 5-years-old (thank you, older sis) and didn’t have any nightmares, my felt it was OK to let me delve into the horror genre a little deeper. The way she saw it, as long as I know it’s not real and it didn’t cause nightmares, then it’s OK. And I must thank her for that. For a while, the horror genre was one of my favorites. I saw the entire HALLOWEEN series by the time I was 10. My mom and I would have movie night where we would watch scary movies together. And because of this, horror films will always have a special place in my heart.

But, oh boy, has the horror genre really fallen. After THE RING (which I really liked) came out it spawned a new age of PG-13 horror movies that completely missed why THE RING was able to pull of its PG-13 rating. And later on, the SAW movies brought in the torture porn sub-genre which completely missed the point of the first SAW movie and just tried to make us cringe. Most horror movies now don’t know how to scare. Atmosphere and tension are completely forgotten and, most importantly, characters we care about to make us feel scared for their safety is lost. It’s all about setting up the most gruesome deaths imaginable and endless, cheap jump scares.

Which is why when I saw the trailer for DON’T BREATHE refreshing. The movie’s about three, young burglars who are breaking into an old, blind man’s house to steal his money, which they are told he’s got about $300,000, and they get trapped in his house and hunted by the blind man who happens to be a retired war-vet and crazy badass. It’s an incredibly simple premise that has a lot of opportunity for creative scares and inventive scenarios to build great tension. For the most part, I was right. DON’T BREATHE (DB from now on) definitely goes back to the old-school tension and atmosphere and has some really well set up sequences. However, it’s also a great example of how a bad third act can almost completely ruin your entire movie.

One problem I knew DB was going to have is making me root for the main characters. Three burglars aren’t exactly what you would call “good guys.” But the movie does establish pretty early that they’re not really bad people. Well, two of them aren’t. One really is. But the two that aren’t are doing this for something other than greed. Well, at least one of them is. Thinking about it now, the movie does do a good job at showing who these people are without much exposition. There is some, but it does show quite a bit rather than straight up tell us. I know who these three people are and why they’re doing it and I can at least empathise with two of them. So when they’re in danger, I do care. And these guys aren’t under the guise that they’re good, either. They know what they’re doing. They’re fully aware that they’re in the wrong. And it leaves room for them to grow. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like they really developed as characters through the course of the movie. At least they got half of this right.

With a good setup and great pacing, DB never felt boring. The first act is efficient in setting everything up and showing us the characters and scenarios before quickly getting us into the the main score. While these characters aren’t really pros at this, they know what they’re doing. A lot of detail went into how they go about pulling off these burglaries. Not so much on how they’re able to get away with it, but they at least show some competence. Even before things start getting crazy there’s a good amount of tension. The very subtle score and on-point sound cues really drive home the tension that’s greatly presented in the visual design.

Before DON’T BREATHE, the director, Fede Alvarez, showed he has talent with the horror genre by directing the EVIL DEAD reboot. I really dug that reboot and he showed off that he has great sensibilities for what horror was really missing for a while: atmosphere. Every moment in the house was unnerving even before the antagonist comes along. With such a small setting he had to get creative with how to use the space given. And he does a great job with every little bit of this house. You get a decent sense of the layout and where everyone is at any given point while also being able to make you feel hopelessly lost when it needs you to.

Stephen Lang kills it as the blind man. He is both the best and worst part about this movie. To clarify, Stephen Lang is the best part, his character later becomes the worst part. It starts off great having the old man look like a helpless old man only to quickly show how deadly he is. He’s completely within his legal right to defend his home from the invading “protagonists” and the movie could have really played up the dynamic of good people doing bad things out of necessity and how these actions affect the ones they wrong as well as how they feel as people for doing this to others. And also ask the audience who they should root for in this scenario. These could have been things that the movie did in yesteryears, but this is a modern day horror movie. And we’re supposed to have a clear cut bad guy to terrorize out good guys, so the movie goes really far out of its way to show that the blind man is definitely not a good guy. And at first, I thought with him being a military vet this could bring up PTSD and the effects of being in the craziness of war and the craziness of society with social injustices with a rich kid getting away with killing his daughter in a car accident (don’t worry, this isn’t a spoiler). But nope. The movie completely tossed that aside and made it impossible to like the blind man.

Oh boy.

I was really enjoying the first two acts of DB. The set pieces were finely crafted and had a sense of urgency to them. I wanted to root for the main characters, but at the same time, I can’t say I was completely on their side. I wanted to, but I didn’t quite feel they earned the right to win this battle. And when things started to push me to their side the movie takes a hard left turn in the third act that really made me cringe.

Now, there was a part in the second act that made me question where the movie was going. That part I talked about the PTSD possibilities… Yeah, I can’t get into it without spoiling, so I won’t. But it was an odd thing that they could have made sense out of, I guess, if they tried. But what they went for was completely absurd. In about 5 minutes I was completely turned off after almost being fully on board. This one scene utterly destroys Stephen Lang’s character. A damn shame, too. Before this one scene, he was the best part. Everything he does afterwards is just as good as everything before this. But the bad taste left behind made it nearly impossible for me to enjoy any of it.

It’s not just Lang’s character. Without giving it away, the main characters had a couple opportunities to show some growth. To learn something from all their perilous struggles and to walk away as better people because of this horrific event. But this also handled poorly. I’m not sure if it was originally scripted this way or if the writers intentionally made it so they don’t want the main characters to learn anything. And at first they tried to make the answer to this question a bit ambiguous then decides to wipe away any doubts. This could have been a redeeming moment for the movie especially after that atrocious scene before. And what remains afterwards is still clever. But there was no enjoyment to be had.

I really wanted to like DON’T BREATHE. I was excited for there to be a really good atmospheric horror movie. I was getting what I wanted for a good hour and fifteen minutes. But this just goes to show how important your final act is. That's incredibly unfortunate because there's a lot of incredible filmmaking that went into this movie. But it doesn’t matter how great your movie is if the ending is terrible. The most important part is how your audience feels when the screen goes black. That’s the feeling they’re going to take home with them. Mine was disappointment.

NOT RECOMMENDED for the most part.

But if you want to see how you can create great atmosphere and tension using a very simple premise and being really creative, then it's worth at least checking out once it gets to Netflix.

Original post HERE

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS review.

I’ve been a fan of Laika ever since Coraline came out in 2009. Coraline was directed by Henry Selick who also directed NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH with his team as well as doing freelance work for movies like CORPSE BRIDE before they started making motion pictures in their signature stop-motion style. So far, Laika is batting 1.000 for me. CORALINE was incredible. PARANORMAN was a movie that was made for me. And THE BOXTROLLS didn’t have that same captivating magic to it, but it’s still a solid movie. In December of 2014, Laika announced they were doing a new movie in the style of Japanese folklore, I knew I had to see it. I’ve been excited ever since. Now that KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is finally here, I wasn’t disappointed.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is a gorgeous film. The stop-motion animation is beautifully done. Laika is probably the only studio keeping this format alive. And KUBO waists no time showing off the capabilities of this team. The opening scene sets the tone and the stakes and immediately gets you attached to the main character.

Something that’s fun about KUBO is the way they treat the mythical elements of the story. This story is loosely based in ancient Japanese folklore so when magic happens it’s just treated as normal. There’s no explanation for the magic and it’s just accepted as reality. I really dug that element.

I’ll get the two main flaws of the movie out of the way before I get back to singing its praises. First, the story itself is pretty thin and, for the most part, predictable. It’s a hero’s quest, or a video game story, moving from one object to the next with a boss fight right at each of the 3 main quest items before going to the big, bad final boss. There’s also a reveal which doesn’t come as much as a surprise especially after the first one is shown. And because the movie is so compact they do a lot of telling rather than showing for some key details.

Secondly, the main villain is just kind of there. The Moon King is talked about from the opening scene of the movie, but we never really get to see him until really late in the movie. We mostly spend time running away from the two henchmen, the Moon King’s two daughters (I’ll talk more about them in a little bit), but the big, bad guy just kind of felt like he was there. Other than being responsible for the hero to be in the situation I never really got a sense of why I should be fearful of him until he shows up in the final act. And for a film that leads up to the “final boss” it should have spent a little more time building him up. Also, it was a bit too reminiscent of THE AVENGERS… You’ll know when you see it.

Having said that, the two main villains, the sisters, are fantastic. They’re not really developed, but they are menacing. Every time they come on screen it feels like something terrible can happen. And almost every scene they’re in, something terrible does happen. Right at the turn from the first to the second act, when the sisters make their appearance, it is immediately tense. They are creepy as hell. At times it feels like they could just wipe out Kubo in an instant but decide to pull as much enjoyment from the torment they cause as they can.

Laika has made nothing but PG films, but they do not shy away from putting disturbing and dark imagery on screen. I love that about them. They treat their audience, especially the children, with a level of respect most studios don’t even put in their hard-R films. Yes, a lot of what happens in KUBO is scary. But they believe you can handle it. Without actually showing scary or bad things happening we can’t truly appreciate the consequences, both good and bad. And we grow more attached to the characters because of this.

While the plot and story of KUBO is on the weaker side, the characters were a lot better. The three main characters, Kubo, Monkey, and Beetle, were all interesting and different. Kubo, of course, gets a lot more development and set up than the other two being the main character. Monkey shows up right at the beginning of the second act. She’s cold at first. Keeping Kubo on track and making sure he stays on track for his quest. But she has a lot of these small gestures to Kubo that show that beneath all that she does truly care about him. Beetle comes in around half way through the movie and every moment he’s on screen is fun. Very straight forward character, mostly there for one-liners. He doesn’t get much development at all, but he was really fun to be around. The play between Monkey and Beetle may seem annoying for some, but it was a nice break from “main quests” seriousness. It does actually lead somewhere, whether or not it feel like it will. And while it wasn’t as satisfying as the movie may want it to be, it is nice.

Whether or not you get invested in the story or characters, one thing’s for certain, the visuals will keep you interested if nothing else does. Laika’s animation department, all done in painstaking stop-motion animation, is masterful. The amount of detail in each shot is nothing short of incredible. Whether it be magical origami to the guitar strumming, or an intense sword fight in a storm, the choreography and shot composition grabs your attention and won’t let go. Each of these set pieces also adds to either the story or the characters. Each scene is also very unique. The world built by this team is fascinating.

Probably a big part of what makes everything feel so engrossing is the music by Dario Marianelli, who also did the music for Laika’s previous film THE BOXTROLLS. Whether it be the magical shamisen (traditional 3-string Japanese guitar), the background music to a magical duel, or the subtle lingering notes when our characters are having an emotional moment. Every musical beat hits the right emotional note.

I was captivated from start to finish with KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS. Even clearly seeing the flaws didn’t take away from my enjoyment. It hit all the right emotional notes for me as well as being the most visually stunning movies of the year. And while the final, big, bad boss didn’t carry the weight that it should have, the movie takes a really smart turn with the climax. I love the ending to KUBO. It’s kind of hard to talk about why I love this ending so much without talking about spoilers. But without giving anything away, the movie both deflects the expectations of how it’s going to be resolved while doing a nice callback to a scene in the first act. There’s a moment where Kubo as this revelation and I just warmed up inside. Then to see the rest of the film play out and get to the final shot was about as satisfying as any final shot could be.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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