Outlaw King (2018)
DIRECTOR: David Mackenzie
CAST: Chris Pine, Florence Pugh, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Billy Howle, Tony Curran, Sam Spruell, Stephen Dillane, James Cosmo
REVIEW:
Outlaw King, co-writer/producer/director David Mackenzie’s chronicle of the rebellious activities of Scottish national hero Robert the Bruce, could be seen as a sort of indirect follow-up to Braveheart (to be clear, this is not a “sequel” to Braveheart, merely dealing with a couple of the same characters around the same time period), and while it lacks the scope and compulsive narrative drive of Mel Gibson’s epic, it serves as an interesting, if lesser, companion piece.
Continue readingOperation Finale (2018)
DIRECTOR: Chris Weitz
CAST: Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Joe Alwyn, Lior Raz, Torben Liebrecht, Greg Hill, Greta Scacchi, Peter Strauss, Russell Simon Beale
REVIEW:
Operation Finale is a well-crafted, sure-handed, engaging spy thriller chronicling in unvarnished docudrama fashion the (mostly) true story of the 1960 mission by agents of Mossad (Israeli secret service) to track down, apprehend, and extradite fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from his hiding place in Argentina. It’s not the first production about this subject (there is a 1996 TV movie, The Man Who Captured Eichmann, starring Arliss Howard as lead Mossad agent Peter Malkin and Robert Duvall as Eichmann), but it’s the most big-budget and the best quality. It’s a good starting point for anyone unfamiliar with the story, and worth a watch for those who already are, even if it doesn’t really bring much new to the genre. Continue reading
The Meg (2018)
CAST: Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, Robert Taylor, Jessica McNamee, Masi Oka, Page Kennedy, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Shuya Sophia Cai
REVIEW:
The Meg (based very loosely on the first novel in a book series by Steve Alten) is an example of a movie whose trailer is more entertaining than the movie itself. The trailer doesn’t lead anyone to go in with Best Picture aspirations, but it suggests big, dumb, campy fun with a breezy tone. In reality, while indeed cheesy, The Meg takes itself entirely too seriously and holds back the inherently silly premise rather than embracing the absurdity. Continue reading
Skyscraper (2018)
DIRECTOR: Rawson Marshall Thurber
CAST: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, McKenna Roberts, Noah Cottrell, Roland Moller, Chin Han, Hannah Quinlivan, Noah Taylor, Byron Mann, Elfina Luk, Pablo Schreiber
REVIEW:
Among the myriad lesser Die Hard knock-offs, Skyscraper falls somewhere in the middle, an adequately involving diversion in the moment that doesn’t leave a strong impression once all the stunts and pyrotechnics are over. A mash-up of Die Hard and The Towering Inferno, it feels like something that would have been at home in the 1980s starring the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger (whose career Dwayne Johnson often seems to be attempting to emulate) or Sylvester Stallone. Continue reading
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
DIRECTOR: Peyton Reed
CAST: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michael Pena, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Pfeiffer, Randall Park, T.I., David Dastmalchian, Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale, Abby Ryder Fortson
REVIEW:
After the grim finale of The Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp could be viewed as a sort of palette cleanser. The follow-up to 2015’s Ant-Man maintains the same lightweight insubstantial tone, served up with more nifty visuals and one of the highest humor quotients of any MCU movie. The result is nowhere near among the MCU’s stronger offerings but is an enjoyable enough diversion, especially for those seeking something a little lighter staggering shell-shocked out of the theater after Infinity War. Continue reading
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
DIRECTOR: J.A. Bayona
CAST: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Daniella Penada, Justice Smith, Isabella Sermon, Ted Levine, Toby Jones, B.D. Wong, James Cromwell, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeff Goldblum
REVIEW:
Fallen Kingdom, the second installment in the Jurassic Park “reboot” rebranded as Jurassic World (or fifth in the overall franchise) proves it’s still possible to inject a little rejuvenating freshness into a concept—people running around menaced by dinosaurs—that had seemed milked to the last drop. While 2015’s Jurassic World (despite being a big enough box office smash to greenlight sequels) was overly bogged down in nostalgic callbacks and recycled material, Fallen Kingdom goes in some refreshingly different directions, including fulfilling my biggest wish list for a sequel: get off the damn island already. Continue reading
Hotel Artemis (2018)
DIRECTOR: Drew Pearce
CAST: Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Dave Bautista, Charlie Day, Jenny Slate, Jeff Goldblum, Zachary Quinto
REVIEW:
Hotel Artemis is a slick, engaging action thriller that holds the attention while it lasts (which is just shy of an hour and a half) but ends up feeling a trifle insubstantial and underdeveloped. Its vibe is halfway between comic book and Tarantino wannabe, and it boasts enough flashy action sequences, colorful characters, tension, and a few twists and turns to engage in the moment, even if the conclusion underwhelms. Continue reading
Ocean’s Eight (2018)
DIRECTOR: Gary Ross
CAST: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Awkwafina, Mindy Kaling, Richard Armitage, James Corden
REVIEW:
2001’s Ocean’s Eleven was a slight but breezy and enjoyable heist caper. Its two superfluous sequels were aimless, self-indulgent add-ons that felt more like thin excuses for the star-studded cast to get back together and have some more fun. And now, as if the “brand name” has not been milked to death, here comes a paper-thin indirect “sequel” of sorts. Ocean’s Eight is a generic and uninspired heist caper that’s never more than mildly entertaining and doesn’t offer anything fresh besides its all-female cast. Continue reading
Deadpool 2 (2018)
DIRECTOR: David Leitch
CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Zazie Beetz, Morena Baccarin, Brianna Hildebrand, T.J. Miller, Stefan Kapicic, Julian Dennison, Terry Crews, Bill Skarsgard, Karan Soni, Shiori Kutsuna, Leslie Uggams, Rob Delaney, Eddie Marsan
REVIEW:
2016’s Deadpool was such a blast of kinetic, wildly irreverent R-rated fun that it was both inevitable that a sequel would be made, and that the same freshness level was unlikely to be recaptured. True to expectations, Deadpool 2 serves up more of the same serviceably enough to be a fun, if overlong, time, but without quite the same pizzazz. Even so, fans of The Merc With the Mouth are likely to enjoy his second big screen romp, if perhaps not quite as much as they did in 2016. Continue reading
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
CAST: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany, Joonas Suotamo, Erin Kellyman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (voice), Jon Favreau (voice)
REVIEW:
And now for something completely superfluous…Solo, a movie no one was clamoring for, telling the backstory of Han Solo that we already got the gist of from his introduction in A New Hope over forty years ago, lends credence to fears that Lucasfilm is beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel in its quest to not only continue the “main” ongoing narrative but also expand into stand-alone “anthology” films. Solo follows Rogue One in this subcategory, but unlike Rogue One, it fails to offer virtually any memorable moments or do anything fresh or interesting with its Point A to Point B telling of a backstory that didn’t need a whole movie to flesh it out in the first place, especially one as rote as this. Equal parts a bland origin story and a generic heist flick, Solo is moderately entertaining but fails to justify its superfluous existence. Unlike last year’s disappointing The Last Jedi, this stand-alone “take it or leave it” side entry doesn’t do anything to damage the overall narrative, but nor does it add anything. Continue reading