Alien: Covenant (2017)
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Billy Crudup
REVIEW:
In 2012, Ridley Scott returned to the universe of his 1979 sci-fi horror classic Alien with the ambitious, sporadically compelling, but in some ways unwieldy and half-formed Prometheus, but those who went to the theater expecting more traditional xenomorph action were disappointed. Originally, Scott intended to follow up Prometheus with a follow-up tentatively titled Paradise which would have gone even further afield from Alien, but in the wake of Prometheus‘ lukewarm reception, Fox decided to play it safe and explored other options for getting back to the aliens as we know them, including with Neill Blomkamp’s proposed sequel to James Cameron’s 1986 Aliens which would have reunited Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn and potentially wiped all other sequels out in favor of an alternate storyline (which, given the declining quality level of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, many fans would have been okay with). However, when the grandfather of the franchise Ridley Scott himself expressed willingness to make an Alien movie that was less like Prometheus and more like the traditional films, Fox gave him the green light and Blomkamp’s project became indefinitely dead in the water. The result bears all the hallmarks of a movie stuck in some netherworld between being a follow-up to Prometheus and a more conventional Alien movie, but serves up enough of what fans liked about the series in the first place to be an engaging diversion, even if it doesn’t approach the franchise at its height. Continue reading
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
DIRECTOR: James Gunn
CAST: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper (voice), Vin Diesel (voice), Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Kurt Russell, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki
REVIEW:
Back in 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy was considered a risky proposition for Marvel Studios, spending a lot of money making and promoting a movie featuring superheroes far lesser-known than the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and company who make up Marvel’s flagship The Avengers, but three years and $750 million later, the new film franchise is one of the flourishing studio’s most popular properties. Now that the inevitable sequel has arrived, the wait will probably be worth it for most fans. The simply titled Vol. 2 is an entertaining ride, even if it lacks a little of the freshness of its predecessor and at times feels a little weighed down by the burden on sequels to be “bigger”. Continue reading
Logan (2017)
DIRECTOR: James Mangold
CAST: Hugh Jackman, Dafne Keen, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Richard E. Grant, Eriq La Salle
REVIEW:
Even more so than Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Logan defies the labels of “comic book” or “superhero” movie. Together with last year’s Deadpool, it’s a rare “comic book movie” to earn a well-deserved R rating, but their tones couldn’t be more different. Profanity and graphic violence flow freely in both, but while Deadpool was a tongue-in-cheek romp, Logan (loosely taking some elements from the Old Man Logan comic miniseries) is a dead serious, rather bleak affair. But while their tones are polar opposites, Deadpool and Logan both refuse to play by conventional superhero movie rules. Logan also serves as the swan song for two of moviedom’s most iconic superheroes, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier (both of whom have reprised these characters off and on for the past seventeen years). Small children should be left at home for this one, but for those to whom its grimness isn’t too jarring, Logan might be the most raw and uncompromising gut punch of any “comic book movie”. Those who thought The Dark Knight was for grown-ups haven’t seen anything yet compared to where this movie dares to go. Continue reading
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
DIRECTOR: Gareth Edwards
CAST: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Forest Whitaker, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Riz Ahmed, Alan Tudyk (voice)
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN “SPOILERS”
Rogue One, the second entry in Disney’s revival of the Star Wars franchise after buying the rights from creator George Lucas, represents a risky departure and an attempt at doing something different with the iconic property. Unlike last year’s The Force Awakens, Rogue One is not a continuation of the main series (as evidenced by being titled as a Star Wars “story” as opposed to an episode), but a mostly stand-alone entry that serves as a prequel/tie-in with the original 1977 A New Hope, chronicling the untold story of exactly how those stolen Death Star plans fell into the rebels’ hands in the first place. The result comes with plenty of familiar Star Wars trappings (some more heavy-handed than others), but a markedly different tone and feel. Rogue One bears more resemblance to a Dirty Dozen-style war/spy thriller than a conventional Star Wars movie. To that end, it’s generally well-crafted, but doesn’t completely avoid feeling like a “take it or leave it” footnote to the original trilogy. Continue reading
Inferno (2016)
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
CAST: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Omar Sy, Ben Foster, Ana Ularu
REVIEW:
If nothing else, Inferno might hammer the final nail in the coffin of Sony’s increasingly inexplicable determination to make Robert Langdon—the protagonist of Dan Brown’s pulpy book series—into a “franchise” headliner. Dry, professorial Langdon isn’t exactly 007, and The Da Vinci Code was only a moderate box office success, while Angels & Demons didn’t do much business worth writing home about, but Sony insisted on forging ahead. With Inferno already opening weak, it might be time to stop adapting Dan Brown books. If you’re one of the seemingly relatively few people—including myself—who moderately enjoy these movies, Inferno offers up largely more of the same, but isn’t as good as the unevenly-paced but sporadically fascinating Da Vinci Code and doesn’t represent a compelling reason to rush to a theater near you. Continue reading
Jason Bourne (2016)
DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass
CAST: Matt Damon, Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Julia Stiles
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL REVEAL “SPOILERS”
With the total box office gross for Universal’s Bourne trilogy reaching nearly $1 billion, it was inevitable that the studio would want more, even when director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon were uninterested in returning, but their misfired attempt at expanding the Bourne “universe”, 2012’s The Bourne Legacy (starring Jeremy Renner as someone not named Jason Bourne), was a superfluous side tangent to nowhere. A Matt Damon-sized hole was left in the franchise, a hole that has finally been filled, nearly a decade after he last played the part, with he and Greengrass returning to the popular action series. Was it worth the wait (and the undoubtedly hefty paychecks involved in drawing both men back into the fold)? Questionable. Among long-awaited sequels to popular franchises, the simply-titled Jason Bourne is better than this summer’s unneeded sequels London Has Fallen or Independence Day: Resurgence, but it feels like a “greatest hits” cover of the original series, reheated and served for leftovers. It doesn’t break any new ground; in fact, it rehashes various plot elements, to the extent that it comes across as an adequately engaging but ultimately superfluous sequel whose existence is unessential. Continue reading
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
DIRECTOR: Justin Lin
CAST: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Sofia Boutella, Idris Elba
REVIEW:
Star Trek: Beyond, the third installment in the “new” Star Trek reboot series, with Justin Lin of the Fast & Furious series taking over from J.J. Abrams (who stepped back to merely producing while busy rebooting another sci-fi franchise with Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens), feels like a super-sized, feature-length episode of the original series (with a budget it could only have dreamed of, of course), but while there are more of Gene Rodenberry’s fingerprints on this one than its two immediate predecessors, the script by Doug Jung and Simon Pegg (the latter of whom, of course, also co-stars as Scotty) fails to go “beyond” as the title aspires toward. Continue reading
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
DIRECTOR: Roland Emmerich
CAST: Jeff Goldblum, Liam Hemsworth, Bill Pullman, Brent Spiner, Jessie T. Usher, Maika Monroe, Judd Hirsch, William Fichtner, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sela Ward
REVIEW:
It feels a little odd to complain about a movie being “big, dumb, brainless summer entertainment” when it’s a sequel to a movie, 1996’s blockbuster Independence Day, that could be described with that same quote, but not only does Independence Day: Resurgence join London Has Fallen among this spring/summer’s superfluous sequels, but this long-gestating follow-up also manages to fall short of a predecessor that wasn’t that great to begin with. I admit to having a bit of a nostalgic soft spot for ID4; it’s not a “great” movie, but it’s a cheesily entertaining wannabe “epic” and nostalgia has won it a fond place—perhaps more than it deserves—in the hearts of a generation that grew up with it. But while rumors of a follow-up were around virtually since the original’s release, twenty years is an awfully long time to wait. It’s hard to imagine many ardent Independence Day fans salivating for more. Its time has long-since come and gone. In fact, it doesn’t come across like the cast and crew cared that much either. Will Smith demanded a massive paycheck to return, which 20th Century Fox eventually rejected (and conveniently killed his character off between movies), and the whole production has a lazy, uninspired, slapped-together feel. The original may have been a hit in its day, but Resurgence is likely to go the Jurassic Park III route of a superfluous sequel that no one really cares about and most may prefer to ignore the (unnecessary) existence of. Continue reading
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
DIRECTOR: Bryan Singer
CAST: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Oscar Isaac, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, Lucas Till, Alexandra Shipp, Olivia Munn, Ben Hardy
REVIEW:
X-Men: Apocalypse is the fourth comic book superhero movie to arrive in theaters in the first five months of 2016 (preceded by Deadpool, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Captain America: Civil War). With so many comic book movies churning out left and right these days, over-saturation is a growing concern, and Apocalypse doesn’t do anything to distinguish itself in a crowded field. In fact, it’s a disappointingly generic and muddled effort that, despite its attempts to up the ante, is a marked step down from its immediate predecessors X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, nor is it as good as the original live-action X-Men movie or X2: X-Men United. It’s better than the prequel misfire X-Men Origins: Wolverine (no great accomplishment) but stands about even with X-Men: The Last Stand (though, in fairness, despite its ominous title, Apocalypse doesn’t massacre half the cast, so while as muddled and uneven as Last Stand, it’s not as aggravating). With Days of Future Past, returning series helmsman Bryan Singer (who directed and co-wrote 1 & 2) kept the fresh rejuvenating life Matthew Vaughn breathed into First Class going strong, but here, the rebooted series’ reclaimed energy and freshness is sputtering in fits and starts. Continue reading
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
DIRECTOR: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
CAST: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Chadwick Boseman, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Tom Holland, Daniel Brühl, Emily VanCamp, William Hurt, Martin Freeman, Frank Grillo
REVIEW:
Not only is Captain America: Civil War, taking its name and basic premise from a well-known storyline in the comics (albeit with various plot particulars changed from page to screen), a direct follow-up to events in both The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (familiarity with both is necessary to fully understanding everything that’s going on here), it’s also the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” answer to DC /Warner Bros’ Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice two months earlier, an “event” pitting two iconic superheroes against each other (at least for part of the screentime). To that end, it’s easily better-crafted than the lugubrious BvS and more enjoyable than the bloated Age of Ultron but not as good as The Winter Soldier, which had a much more focused plot and tighter pace. Fan service and an excess of characters and subplots weighs down the proceedings, but it still provides plenty bound to thrill fans of the comics while not glossing over the events that have led up to this point. Continue reading