Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
DIRECTOR: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
CAST: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Rege-Jean Page, Hugh Grant, Daisy Head
REVIEW:
I went into Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves mostly blind, not really sure of what to expect, and with no particular expectations, and came out pleasantly surprised. While it’s slight compared to epic fantasy like The Lord of the Rings (which, in fairness, it’s not trying to compete with), it’s a breezy enjoyable romp combining action, comedy, magic, and as the title suggests, dungeons and dragons.
Continue readingShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
DIRECTOR: Destin Daniel Cretton
CAST: Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Tony Leung, Meng’er Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, Ben Kingsley, Florian Munteanu, Benedict Wong
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN “SPOILERS”
With the Infinity War phase ended, the Marvel Cinematic Universe must now turn its focus toward the next era of its superheroes, including replacing some of its long-running mainstays who’ve left us (Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow) with the next generation. To that end, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an engaging origin story that manages touches of an epic feel and does things different from what we expect from the Marvel formula and whose first half feels like an old-school martial arts action flick and whose second half feels like a mythological fantasy epic with shades of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Mulan.
Continue readingStar Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
DIRECTOR: J.J. Abrams
CAST: Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid, Richard E. Grant, Domhnall Gleeson, Keri Russell, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Anthony Daniels
REVIEW:
In my previous reviews, I considered J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens—the first installment of Disney’s continuation of the Star Wars saga after acquiring Lucasfilm from creator George Lucas—to be (despite some valid criticisms about it being more-or-less a reworked variation of A New Hope) a promising launching pad. Alas, that promise was squandered by the follow-up, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, which received some praise but proved deeply divisive among fans and which I unfortunately came down on the negative side of, considering it both narratively unwieldy and having the feel of a Star Wars movie by someone who doesn’t like Star Wars and determined to deconstruct and subvert expectations at every turn for its own sake without having anything satisfying to replace them with. And now, with J.J. Abrams retaking the director’s chair—reportedly due to Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy deciding to go in a “safer” direction after the mixed response to The Last Jedi—we get Overcorrection: The Movie. In fairness to Abrams, he came back onboard with strikes against him: Johnson undoing some of the groundwork he’d laid in the first place, as well as the offscreen death of Carrie Fisher. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, Abrams has not succeeded in righting the ship enough to end on a strong note. Rise of Skywalker is scattershot and convoluted, filled with extraneous characters, a poorly-focused narrative, and an overly frenetic pace that seldom slows down enough to make much sense of anything (not that there’s much sense to be found).
Continue readingMaleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
DIRECTOR: Joachim Ronning
CAST: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Harris Dickinson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ed Skrein, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, Robert Lindsay, David Gyasi, Warwick Davis
REVIEW:
2014’s Maleficent, a “reimagining” of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale which turned the story on its head by casting Maleficent more as a wronged tragic anti-heroine than cackling villainess, was a lightweight and mediocre fantasy adventure, but it did well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel. Nevertheless, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil will likely appeal to the same audience who enjoyed the first movie and likewise not convert those who were unimpressed. Despite a somewhat “bigger” story and expanded world-building, it doesn’t take things appreciably further than its modestly successful predecessor.
Continue readingMortal Engines (2018)
DIRECTOR: Christian Rivers
CAST: Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, Jihae, Leila George, Ronan Raftery, Patrick Malahide, Stephen Lang
REVIEW:
“From the producers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy”—though it was actually directed by Christian Rivers, not Peter Jackson—comes the latest YA fantasy book-to-screen adaptation. Mortal Engines is decidedly style over substance, but unlike Divergent, which was robbed of a cinematic final chapter and left hanging due to declining box office returns, it at least shows the good sense to tell a self-contained story with a beginning, middle, and end (there’s three more novels in Philip Reeves’ series), ensuring audiences will get a satisfactory stopping point in case no further films are forthcoming (a wise move, as a weak reception makes this a likely one-and-done). A smorgasbord of CGI-heavy eye candy and pretty visuals only partially compensates for a generic and underdeveloped narrative, but Mortal Engines is still a fun and interestingly unique ride, even if a shallow rushed feel keeps it from ascending to true epic fantasy.
Continue readingFantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
DIRECTOR: David Yates
CAST: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Ezra Miller, Zoe Kravitz, Jude Law, Johnny Depp
REVIEW:
In my review of 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I said that it was an enjoyable stand-alone adventure, but that its status as a franchise-launcher was in doubt. Unfortunately, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has not allayed those concerns. An overstuffed mess as unwieldy as its title, this is as good an example of any as a “middle chapter” that suffers from obsessing over set-up and moving all the pieces into position on the chessboard to the detriment of actually telling much of a story. There’s also unfortunately a little of “George Lucas Star Wars Prequel Syndrome” creeping into J.K. Rowling’s screenwriting, as well as falling prey to the overindulgent excesses of when Peter Jackson returned to the Middle Earth trough with his laboriously expanded and drawn-out Hobbit “trilogy”. It’s possible that when all is said and done (there are supposedly still three more films to go in this Harry Potter spin-off series), The Crimes of Grindelwald may be perceived more favorably in hindsight, but as things stand now, the idea of three more movies of this feels more laborious than exciting. 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
Ready Player One (2018)
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, Philip Zao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen, Mark Rylance, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg
REVIEW:
Ready Player One might be the biggest special effects extravaganza since James Cameron’s Avatar nearly a decade ago, and while it won’t necessarily go down as a classic on the level of Steven Spielberg’s most beloved films, it resurrects some of the old Spielbergian magic that many thought flickered out a long time ago (his last attempt at hearkening back to the lighthearted sense of fun he once possessed before Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, felt low energy and tired and only flirted with recapturing it in fits and starts). Many movies aspire to be referred to as “eye candy”, but it’s well-deserved here. Ready Player One might not be the most consequential movie Spielberg has directed in a long time, but it’s easily the most fun. Continue reading
Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
DIRECTOR: Steven S. DeKnight
CAST: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Tian Jing, Rinko Kikuchi
REVIEW:
Among superfluous sequels slapped-together because the original was deemed to make sufficient profits (2013’s Pacific Rim did not do that well in the US, but was big in China, which persuaded Universal and Chinese-owned Legendary Pictures to cough up the money for a second installment), Pacific Rim: Uprising is at least a fresher and more enjoyable experience than the tired, low energy likes of Independence Day: Resurgence or London Has Fallen. The first Pacific Rim was not a great movie, but Guillermo Del Toro crafted it as an obvious passion project and a love letter to both the anime and kaiju—Japanese monster movie—genres (probably why it was more popular in Asia than the United States), and served up a smorgasbord of geeky fun for those who simply delighted in the big-budget, splashy special effects-filled spectacle of giant monsters duking it out with giant robots. Like many sequels, Uprising tries to serve up bigger—the climactic battle royale pits four Jaeger robots against a supersized kaiju—but serves up enough of more of the same to entertain fans of what the first had to offer. If you’re the audience for this, you probably know who you are by now. Continue reading
The Shape of Water (2017)
DIRECTOR: Guillermo Del Toro
CAST: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones
REVIEW:
The Shape of Water, offbeat writer-director Guillermo Del Toro’s latest offering, is essentially an adult romantic fairy tale wrapped up in an homage to 1950s-era monster movies. It’s weird and artsy—two qualities that should be expected in a Del Toro film—but also earnest and heartfelt, and speaks to Del Toro being a romantic at heart. Continue reading