Yearly Archives: 2016

The Nice Guys (2016) Review: Action Comedy At Its Finest Being a big movie fan, you tend to hear certain names pop up now and again. There's the usual like Spielberg, Cameron, Kubrick, Tarantino. Those are sort of introductory level names. As you go a little deeper though, you hear names that are a little more obscure, whose work isn't exactly mainstream, but not exactly indie either. One of those names is Shane Black, who's known for visceral action, biting comedy, profanity, and of course, Christmas. I wasn't aware of his work when I was younger, and I wouldn't have been allowed to see any of it anyway, but now, at the tender age of 19, I was finally able to see a Shane Black movie. I just hoped he hadn't lost his touch while I was growing up.Thank Christ he didn't. 'The Nice Guys' was easily my most anticipated film this year, and it far and away did not disappoint me. To get into the story, it's very simple. It's an old timey "Who dunnit" mystery, where a small crime ends up being connected to a larger conspiracy, and it's up to two unqualified heroes to stop it. The heroes in this case are the titular nice guys. Jackson Healy, an unofficial but capable muscle man for hire, played by Russel Crowe, and Holland March, a licensed, but largely ineffective, private investigator, played by Ryan Gosling. Both are morally grey characters…

The Jungle Book (2016) Review: New Old World. Remakes have always felt weird to me. They exist because of a desire to update an old story for a new audience, but only get made when the old audience still has nostalgia for the old story. Right there you run the risk of alienating the people who made it what it is, and most of the time striking indifference with the new generation. Most of the time it's to be given a facelift. A top to bottom revisualization using new technology, and sometimes an old tale can be applied to a new world issue. Either way, remakes, like prequels, inherently feel unnecessary. It can be hard to shake the cynicism that follows them. 'The Jungle Book' is such a remake, but it definitely doesn't feel like a waste of time. The story is essentially the same as the Disney animated classic. Mowgli is a human child who was raised by wolves, and is forced to run through the jungle as the evil tiger Shere Khan, voiced by Idris Elba, hunts him down. As he makes his escape with the ever so faithful panther Bagheera, played by Sir Ben Kingsley, Mowgli encounters more of the jungle than he's ever seen and along the way finds his place in the world. The changes in the film are almost entirely tonal. The story has a greater sense of dread than the original, and the world itself has a much more…

Captain America: Civil War (2016) Review: If It Ain't Broke... It's the first weekend of May and while that might not actually be the beginning of summer, it is the start of the blockbuster summer season. Coming our way weekend after weekend are movies with big budgets that hope to have even bigger box offices. Question is, for all the money being thrown about, will they be any good? Maybe not, but with school out and the planet getting warmer every year, a mindless movie in a dark air conditioned theatre sounds just fine to me. The hope is that every time you step into that theatre, you get a little more than you bargained for.That's pretty much how I'd describe the first of the blockbusters, 'Captain America: Civil War'. A movie that bounces around a lot of ideas, but the main idea is the most enticing. After the disastrous calamities that have struck the world since the original 'Iron Man', the nations of the globe decide they're kind of tired of their buildings falling and citizens dying because of an Avengers scuffle. To make sure that doesn't happen, the United Nations develops 'The Sokovia Accords', a regulation that would control how and when the Avengers avenge.On one side you have Captain America, who opposes oversight of any sort. He's of the view that the freedom to choose when to act is what the Avengers are all about. On the other side,…

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Review: There Be Monsters. Back in the old days of...2008, there was a little movie called 'Cloverfield'. 'Cloverfield' was a found footage film that told the giant monster movie from a much different perspective. It's heralded today as one of the best movies to use the found footage technique, and an example of how you can take something as familiar as a giant monster movie, and still find a way to make it feel fresh. Putting the audience on the ground with the characters and forsaking grand spectacle for gripping tension sounds so obvious in hindsight, but at the time, it really wasn't done for monster movies.So, let's say the world did end. Whether it be war, zombie uprising, alien invasion or the mole people (that last one is true), the ideal is to survive right? As human beings our instinct is to survive by any means necessary. This is true for some people more than others though, those who prepare for the end based on their own misplaced paranoia. That person may be prepared, but they're still the type of person to prepare for the world ending without any real reason. That's not a person who I want to be surviving with, that's a person who belongs in a mental institution.Essentially that's the idea behind 10 Cloverfield Lane. It's a catch 22 of, yes the world outside is dangerous, but now you're stuck with an insane person…

Zootopia (2016) Review:Animals Are Racist Too In my review for Godzilla, I mentioned how Science Fiction movies have a tendency to be allegorical. The bright lights and cool sounds of a sci-fi movie are like the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine of real world issues go down. The same principle applies to animated movies, except sci-fi tends has a broader audience. Sci-fi movies are treated like the kids movies for people who consider themselves too old for kids movies.Animated movies are typically made for kids. As such there's a much more delicate act in making a movie with an underlying message, since the people you're trying to reach are kids who unfortunately get bombarded with dreck like The Minions movie. Every once in awhile though, a movie like Zootopia comes along and reminds you that not only can animated movies do teach you something, but it's so important when they do.'Zootopia' is a movie that takes place in an alternate universe from our own. One devoid of humans but still containing human inventions like the iPhone. Imagine a world where animals evolved to have the intelligence necessary to develop a society in which lions, tigers and bears could coexist with creatures formerly known as their prey. Such a place would be something of a zoological utopia.The main character of the film is a bunny called Judy Hopps, played by Ginnifer Goodwin. Judy comes from a family of carrot farmers (get it?) who has big dreams of becoming the…

Deadpool (2016) Review: Stupid Good. This movie shouldn't exist. It just shouldn't. It's based off a character whose cinematic debut was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, one of the worst reviewed comic book movies of all time. Typically not a good resume, but when you couple that with the fact that the director's previous directing is a pair of short films and some visual effects work, this film does not have the parts that make up a typical success. Then there's of course the lead, Ryan Reynolds, who hasn't really owned a character since Wilder, and who seems to be superhero movie poison, as his last few attempts at the genre have resulted in rounding out that list of worst reviewed comic book movies. Still though, it's not uncommon for studios to take a chance on a name character, especially if there's an audience for it, but it's not a surprise that this movie got made, it's a surprise that it's really this good. So what is 'Deadpool'?  Well, actually, the movie is more about who Deadpool is as a character. Whereas most superhero films feature stories about characters who wear bright costumes as symbol of truth, justice and the American way,  Deadpool is simply put, a different type of superhero. I hesitate to tell you more about the character, or about the plot of the movie itself, because I truly believe that it's something that's best experienced blindly. All you need to know is that this is a superhero movie, but not one like something you've…