Category: Theaters

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Forget Rotten Tomatoes, Suicide Squad Is A Lot Of Fun!

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Going in to Suicide Squad I read a lot of reviews, and most of them were terrible.  Their unrelenting negativity washed over me.  I was heartbroken.  I had been looking forward to this movie for months, but I steeled for the worse and went anyway with my lovely wife, and you know what?  I enjoyed myself quite a bit.  No Suicide Squad is not perfect, and yes it did feel like two different movies at times: one a dark over the top action comedy, no doubt being pushed by DC, and the other a more standard David Ayer (the director) grimy street crime drama, but I liked both of those movies.

The setup for Suicide Squad is that US government is worried that the next ‘Superman’ may not be a good guy, so they greenlight a project being run by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to have the bad guys be forced to work off their long prison sentences by saving the world.  Not to mention they have bombs in their necks, so if they don’t behave their commander Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) has a button to take a little off the top.

The biggest issue with this movie’s plot is the pacing.  There are so many new characters to introduce that in the beginning Suicide Squad can’t seem to focus for more than a few minutes, but once those introductions are finished and the premise becomes clear the movie kicks it in to high gear.  Sure the big bad’s plan in this film didn’t make a lot of sense, but not to a movie breaking level like everyone seems to be saying it is.

What elevated this movie for me were the amazing performances.  Suicide Squad is an ensemble movie, so the ensemble had to do their parts, and man did they ever.  Viola Davis owned Amanda Waller.  She was every bit the imposing morally gray A.R.G.U.S. director comic book fans have come to know and love.  Will Smith and Margot Robbie likewise nailed their roles as Deadshot and Harley Quinn.  I also need to give special attention to Jay Hernandez as El Diablo.  It would have been very easy for him to get lost in this movie, but he made El Diablo the emotional center of this film.

One role that is going to be a divisive for a lot of fans is Jared Leto’s Joker.  In the comics and the cartoon he always keeps affections for Harley Quinn under wraps.  You tended to get the feeling in the comics that their ‘romance’ was fairly one sided with Harley being infatuated with the Clown Prince, but the Joker couldn’t be forced to care about Harley’s well being or feelings.  Not so in Suicide Squad.  The Joker is just as infatuated with Harley as she is with him.  Not to mention Leto’s Joker seems like he is high all the time.  He doesn’t seem to be the razor sharp and calculating villain most people expect.  I liked this different take, but I can understand why more than a few people are upset.

If you have been excited to see Suicide Squad, but the bad reviews have put you off, you should still go see it anyway.  While there are a lot of things they could have done better it was still a ton of fun, and a great way to see a good representation of a lot of fan favorite characters.  I hope the Squad gets to come back because I can’t wait to see where they take these characters next.  It would be a shame if the Suicide Squad was a one and done franchise.  It has amazing potential.

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Shmee Walks Fast And Punches People With Jason Bourne!

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It has been nine years since the last Matt Damon Bourne movie, but it is clear after watching Jason Bourne that Damon still knows how to play the titular character.  I just wish they would have come up with something interesting for him to do.  Jason Bourne is like a greatest hits from the other Bourne movies.  It is all pretty good, but you have seen it all before.

The film begins with Jason Bourne living off the grid and surviving by winning money one punching people in underground prize fights.  So things are obviously pretty great for him.  Then guess who shows up to tell him that he doesn’t remember all of his past, and that the CIA is up to some more dirty tricks?  That’s right his old pal Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), so Jason will have to walk fast while wearing baseball hats, punch people, and occasionally drive a vehicle at unsafe speeds until he can confront the director of the CIA … again.

Yup.  It is pretty much the same story from the last three Matt Damon Bourne movies.  The locations are different, and the car chases are on a larger scale, but there isn’t any new ground broken with this film.  It is hard to enjoy all the punching and crashing when the story in between is the same old thing.  I was hoping that maybe this time around he would be like a crusading avenger fighting injustice in the spy world or something, but no, his past sucks and the CIA director needs to be taken down a peg.  Maybe these movies are supposed to serve as a warning to the CIA, “Behave or Jason Bourne is going to come down there and punch you!!!”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jason Bourne is not only the return of Matt Damon, but also the series’ most well known director Paul Greengrass.  If that name makes you feel a bit queasy, that is because he is the man that made shaky-cam popular, and he is up to his old tricks.  He shakes that camera all over the place.  Though it seems that this time around he at least remembers to give the audience a few reprieves and hold the camera steady for a few seconds every once and a while.

I have been pretty hard on Jason Bourne, but that is only because I like these movies, and I just wanted them try something a little different with this film.  The action is still top notch, and Matt Damon’s Bourne is still a captivating character.  If you just want watch Jason Bourne do his thing, you will probably like Jason Bourne.  Heck I enjoyed myself for the most part.  I just wish they would have come up with something more meaningful for Jason to do.  Maybe next time.

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How About A Miss Peregrine Featurette?

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is looking more and more like a 1920’s X-Men for kids, but I am okay with that!  Watch this behind the scenes featurette to learn more, or don’t.  I am not your boss.

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Warner Brother’s Best Trailers From Comic Con!

Warner Brothers knows it has do better after the critical failure of Batman v Superman, so it came to this year’s San Diego Comic Con locked and loaded with great trailers and footage.  Here are my favorite three trailers:

First up is Justice League.  The trailer wasn’t perfect, but at least if finally showed the core of the Justice League all on screen at the same time, and that is amazing.  I hope Snyder and Co can turn things around for this film.

Next is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.  This is the best look at the movie thus far, and it looks great.  I can’t wait to see Newt Scamander’s Beasts terrorize 1920’s New York.

At last after 75 years we are getting a Wonder Woman movie, but not only is it a Wonder Woman film it is also a WWI epic!  Wonder Woman is looking like a can’t miss film event.  I know I will be in the theaters day one.

Those are my top three Warner Brothers trailers.  What did you guys think?

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Shmee Travels Beyond With Star Trek!

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I think fans of Star Trek can start to breath a little easier, Star Trek Beyond is very much a Star Trek movie, and a good one at that.  It has its problems, but it feels like the people at Paramount and the producing team at Bad Robot took fans complaints to heart.  Without the action that was injected in to this movie it could have been an episode of the titular series.

Things have gotten a little slow for Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew.  They have been in deep space three years and the routine is starting to get to them.  They are starting to wonder if life aboard a ship is right for them.  In the middle of these personal quandaries they will come up against one of the toughest fights they have ever had to deal with in Krall (Idris Elba) a Federation hating alien bent on its destruction.

While Idris plays Krall menacingly enough, Krall is the worst part of this picture.  You never really understand why he wants to destroy the Federation that much.  They kind of explain it, and they have some ideological differences, but mostly he is just a threat that Kirk and Co have to deal with, and he does pose quite the threat.

The cast, as always, is the best part of this film.  They work so well in there respective roles, and I like that Star Trek Beyond split them in to smaller groups to let them play off of each other a little more.  The Star Trek series was known for this, so it was nice of Star Trek Beyond to return to that.  After three movies it is good to get a little character building.

Star Trek Beyond is not perfect, but it was a good course correction after Star Trek Into Darkness.  The nods and throwbacks in this movie were fun and well used instead of unearned and movie breaking.  In other words Star Trek Beyond is the kind of movie that fans have been wanting, and I hope that future movies follow its lead.