TheWaffle

A lot of laughs, a lot of fun, and a bit of heart. Enjoyed on first watch and rewatch. It’s very sweet watching Lucy Liu and The Rock playing characters that take the naughty list very seriously. Seems like everyone in this country thinks it’s their right to be an unbelievably selfish grinch, and Red One is a delightful reminder that goodness is what makes life worth living.

Sometimes it just feels like I watched an entirely different movie than everyone else. The characters were paper thin, the dialogue was barebones, and the film was obsessed with callbacks to the original. I couldn't take the plot seriously, the mission they're training for is psychotically suicidal, and I couldn't even enjoy the aerial sequences since they ignored the laws of physics and just followed Anime-logic. I dunno, I must've just seen a different movie than everyone else.

The Batman is a refreshing step back from the high-stakes world-ending apocalyptic vision of the Justice League universe. Instead of aliens invading from another dimension, we have a murderer on the lose in Gotham assassinating city officials. The Batman excels when it delves into the intrigue of corruption and violence that plagues the city, and for most of the first 2 hours it succeeds at drawing you into that grim and complex world where lofty ideals come face-to-face with brutal personal violence. Around 2 hours and 15 minutes the film comes to what feels like a fitting conclusion, and then... The biggest drawback is the weak final act which comes out of nowhere and contradicts the villain's entire story arc. The closing set piece is not bad, it's just considerably weaker than the stronger parts that preceded it.

There's a hilarious and scathing 90-minute political comedy hidden somewhere in this 150-minute jumble. But, as is, the film has taken four sittings to get through. Watching Don't Look Up, there are a dozen scenes repeating old info or repeating the same jokes, just begging to get cut, but the editors clearly didn't want to cut a single second of Leo or J-Law's screen time.

A hilariously silly musical comedy. Eurovision has plenty of lovely emotion, music, and enough hilarity to keep you engaged.

An intellectually bankrupt movie that spends approximately 15 minutes mocking the triviality of video games while stroking it's own nostalgic ego... I've played 1-man video games with more depth than this festering pile of trash. This movie is something, but it isn't good. In a franchise like this (Star Wars, James Bond, Jurassic Park), you eventually reach the point where you realize that you've watched more bad films than good ones. The Matrix franchise is one excellent film, two middling films, and one utter piece of garbage. You start Matrix Resurrections in the middle of a nostalgia rehash of the original film, and you expect that it's just a plot device that will soon run it's course. And then it keeps going, and before you know it you're an hour into a film that is nothing but nostalgic call-backs to the original film, while trying to pretend that it's somehow not just a pathetic cash grab (that literally reuses footage from the original film). Keanu looks like he's being held hostage, and like he's saying every line down the barrel ****. Despite 22 years of technological advancement, the effects are worse than the original film. If you paused a frame, the new film might look better, but in motion the effects are just jarringly bad. The acting is bad. The plot is stupid. It's really just the kind of film that I can't believe anyone even thought to make.

This is the rare film adaptation that elevates the show it's based on. Tick Tick Boom the musical draws much of its power from Larson's successor work Rent and his untimely death. The film has the benefit of drawing on that hindsight and Miranda does a great job highlighting the show's themes against Larson's real life. I think the musical, and the film, could use some lyrical reworking. The songs are often a bit too literal with their message, like the characters are just singing their internal monologue. Watching TTB and Rent, it's clear how much better Larson's writing gets over time. Hopefully Miranda continues to bring new and underappreciated musicals to the screen. There are a lot of great shows that wouldn't get a chance on Broadway that would spring to life on screen.

It's a good retelling of an important story about how America's war in Vietnam turned the country against itself. And it's a potent reminder of the rampant thuggery among U.S. police forces, which have been abusing citizens for a long time before 2020. But this film falls into the common courtroom film trap of obsessing over legal maneuvering and mostly forgetting the real goals of the protagonists. While the protagonists talk a lot about the war and the soldiers sent to fight and die there, the film doesn't actually show any of that war's violence. There isn't a single line of dialogue from a draftee or a vet as far as I can recall. It's one thing to read a list of names of the fallen, but it's quite another to see a 19-year-old bleeding out in a ditch on the far side of the world in the service of a war waged for domestic politics.

It's not "the worst movie ever" as some critics have claimed. But I think this story deserved a better film. The book is an excellent memoir of life amidst poverty, drug abuse, and self-destructive behavior. I find the book and film's moralizing pretty repugnant, since both glorify plenty of violence in service of "protecting the family name," but it is interesting to read that perspective. Unfortunately, while the book is chronological, the film skips back and forth without any real cohesive structure. Instead of sequential chapters in JD's life, the film just skips around to different terrible moments in his life: his grandfather's death, his mom's suicide attempt, overdose, his mom yelling at him for no reason, etc. Instead of telling JD's story (he seems to have been fully grown up at the age of 12), the film just revels in his mother's most awful moments. Instead of jump-cutting around, I would have preferred to see why she behaved so terribly, what led her to pain and drugs and overdosing. It's not bad, but it's not very good.

It's a less good, less funny version of Meet the Parents. There's never any question of whether Nick and Rachel will end up together. He's pretty explicit that he doesn't really care about his family's opinion of her, even though the family's disapproval is the main conflict of the film. The film hinges on this very forced dynamic, where some of Nick's rich family and friends try to condescend to Rachel, despite the fact that she is a 20-something economics PhD and professor at NYU (one of the most famous and respected universities in the world). And despite a pretty elaborate set up of Rachel's economics/game-theory background, this never comes into play. She doesn't outwit anybody. She has one 30-second conversation with some rich lady about monetary policy. The film also wastes a lot of time on a pointless Astrid subplot, in which Nick's insanely beautiful/successful/wonderful cousin finds out her husband is cheating on her. We're supposed to feel bad for her, but the guy is clearly not good enough for her, and she's still a wildly successful/wealthy fashion designer, so she'll be fine.

I enjoyed it, I liked the premise, the music was okay. If this is the best way to teach history and national values to younger generations, I'm all for it. But I couldn't really understand the lyrics, had to turn on CC. And except for the duels, the stage direction was pretty vanilla.

An ambitious, delightful, mess. I watched this after the latest sloppy installment of Star Wars, and Jupiter Ascending is so much more fun and heartfelt.

Marriage Story is a great display of acting as Driver and Johansson put on a clinic in this film. For two hours, you watch them go through every conceivable emotion, and you believe them in every moment. The supporting cast is great as well. The plot is simple, but that doesn't really hold the film back. My only complaint is that both characters are so financially successful that the money doesn't really come into the picture, except for a few lines where Driver complains about how much money he's spending on his lawyers. I would have liked to see the two of them making some really difficult financial decisions, like the ones people would face in a real divorce.

The King succeeds where many historical dramas fail. Instead of glorifying warfare, The King exposes warfare as a violent and pathetic endeavor. Henry's stoic stance for peace complements well with the scenes of men brutally butchering one another, sliding in the mud, and falling to the ground in their clumsy armor. The heroic tales of battle are absent; instead portrayed as awkward jumbled masses of bodies and horses. The end result is a spectacular anti-war film that mocks the prideful posturing of kings and princes that has caused so much violence and death through the ages.

Watching Rey and Kylo Ren battle on the ruined remains of the Death Star feels like such an appropriate and pathetic metaphor for Episode 9. Rise of Skywalker is like a dog picking at the leftovers of something that's been dead for years. The Last Jedi was bad, but that movie didn't force them to center Episode 9 around a fleet of 10,000 star destroyers, each armed with a Death Star laser. The plot was nonsensical, there are so many plot holes and logical inconsistencies, and the pacing was so jarringly fast. The cast and special effects departments did a great job, but it was in service of a contrived script. There are so many moments that are meant to tug at your heart strings, but I just felt nothing.

One of the loveliest Christmas movies to come out in recent memory. The animation is great, the story is clever, and it is entertaining for children and adults.

Good clean fun. The plot is really simplified down for the kids and the PG rating. The directing and editing are weaker than they should be, quite a few ideas are left hanging, and the early minutes of the film are mostly shots of the main character moping around aimlessly. I'm glad to see them take such an out-on-a-limb shot with this movie, but the PG rating and the middling directing hold this film back.

The Mustang has an awful lot of heart, and some very convincing performances. But it doesn't quite get off the ground as several scenes boil down to the protagonist angrily arguing with a horse. It's not always clear what he wants out of the creature. Other threads are left dangling, with both his relationship with his inmate friend and his daughter come to unsatisfying conclusions.

It's very, very good. Endgame cashes in on all of the great moments and characters of the MCU, and makes a film unlike anything since Return of the King. One complaint is that the film starts stronger than it finishes, Captain America and Black Widow shine in the first act as we see their heart-break over Infinity War. It's incredibly moving watching a regular guy in a support group talk about his first date since Infinity War, and then hearing Cap tell him 'we gotta learn to live, otherwise Thanos should've just killed all of us.' The rest of the film is good, but not quite as moving. My only real gripes are the way that Captain Marvel and the end battle are shoe-horned in, the movie would have been just as good without either.

Good production design and solid acting. However, the editing and script are pretty weak.

Worth the price of admission, but Bird Box is very inconsistent. The film has two primary settings, and one of them plays like a top-notch thriller while the other seems like a made-for-tv movie. The flash-back elements are too weak to match the jarring opening moments where Bullock is yelling at two kids that "you listen to me, or you die."

Surprisingly good action scenes, hit and miss comedy, lackluster plot. There were several amazing stunts in this film, executed better than any of the Bourne Identity shaky-camera junk. Unfortunately, the solid spy action is wasted on a totally boilerplate story, and the action rarely has much plot motivation behind it. The comedy see-saws from laugh-out-loud to groan-inducing. The production quality is also inconsistent, with some high quality fight scenes spliced in between awkward cut-aways where Kunis and Mckinnon are clearly filmed during a different shoot.

Surprisingly enjoyable. Not too much fan service, just the right amount of humor, solid stakes; all around it's a fun swashbuckling adventure. The effects team deserves all the credit in the world, they make every CG scene feel real: whether its snapping cables hitting a building or debris scattering off the Falcon, it's easy to forget that much of the film is computer generated. You can see where Solo learns the lessons that make him the person he is that we see in A New Hope. Ehrenreich isn't a replacement for Harrison Ford, but he brings his own style to the character, enough to carry the film. Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover devour the screen with their presence. I'm shocked to say it, but I'd like to see more of Solo and Lando together in films like this.

Infinity War is more of an event than it is a movie, and it was always going to be somewhat hampered by the sheer amount of characters that needed to be squeezed in here. But, considering all the constraints that were weighing on it, it is hard to imagine a better outcome than Infinity War. It was fun, entertaining, and emotionally stirring. Any excess side plots or characters made up for their excess by being funny or visually stunning. It was all around a wonderful film.

Every scene with Michael B Jordan or Andy Circus is amazing. Black Panther is strongest when it just puts two characters on screen and puts a conflict between them: whether that's Killmonger disagreeing about the origin of an artifact or T'Challa disagreeing about his nation's role in the world. There are a lot of great scenes and amazing style in this film. However, they should fire the editor. The editing is bland, choppy, and distracting. The editor left no space for scenes to breathe and many sequences feel rushed. In sum, Michael B Jordan puts this movie on his back and carries it through to the end; his raw emotion contrasts wonderfully with Chadwick Boseman's stoic Black Panther and the supporting cast is excellent. I would put this on par with Iron Man.

You'll be shocked to learn that the critics are quite sour about another Netflix release. The Cloverfield Paradox is a fun sci-fi thriller that won't cost you $15 at the theater. However, don't expect much tie-in from the original Cloverfield, as the films are only very loosely connected. It's basically a PG-13 version of Event Horizon.

A great action movie that won't even cost you $15 at the theater. Bright is fun, funny, and full of heart. Ignore the critics, the film studios butter their bread and they don't want to see projects like this succeed. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Blade Runner 2049 is a slow and methodical film with plenty of interesting ideas and visuals, but it struggles through the second half. Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, and even David Bautista are excellent. The opening act was a joy to watch as this cast effortless draws you back into the alienating world of future LA. Unfortunately, that strong beginning gives way to a meandering film that falls back on nostalgia for the original and struggles to forge a compelling new path. The villains feel superfluous and there are hints of a broader world that never really take shape. I wish I could rate this film more highly, but it just doesn't stick the landing.

Enjoyable but unoriginal. Lady Bird is a well made coming-of-age story, but it doesn't bring much new to the table. Set in 2002, it feels like a nostalgic teenage movie, as though it's 15 years to late for the Gen Xers, and it doesn't adapt the genre to deal with more modern teenage issues. There are no glaring weaknesses, except perhaps the father character who is played completely one-note throughout the film. It was never boring, but I don't expect Lady Bird will stick in my mind like other similar films.

The Last Jedi is another solid entry into the Star Wars universe. Unique visuals pair up with powerful themes to deliver a worthy follow up to Force Awakens. The film develops Kylo and Rey in interesting ways and TLJ is not afraid to take creative chances. However, it is something of a muddled film. Like Rogue One, TLJ is missing a clear narrative arc and the story seems to swing from one plot to another without much coherence. Once again Finn is completely unnecessary to the plot, which is disappointing considering how much potential his backstory offers. The movie is bloated with a long side plot that amounts to nothing and only serves to distract from the more compelling lead narrative. In the end, I wish they'd developed a more focused story, but nonetheless, The Last Jedi is an exciting film and well worth a watch.

Justice League is a fun superhero movie that takes the DC universe in the right direction. The cinematography is great and Flash/Cyborg bring a fresh new feel to the team. It's disappointing to see so many reviewers piling on the hate even as WB is righting the ship with Wonder Woman and Justice League. Aquaman and (spoilers) Superman both feel a bit superfluous, and the tone is a bit disjointed between the Snyder and Whedon segments, but the end result is a solid superhero entry.

A fun super hero movie, but there are too many jokes. Way too many jokes. There are moments where named characters die and where cities are destroyed, and those moments are immediately followed up with a one-line quip. The humor was actually pretty good, but it is so jarring to have emotion/tension filled moments just immediately under-cut with jokes that make light of character deaths. I always liked that Thor was more of the straight man in the Avengers, but this time around he's playing for a laugh in every scene. I liked Cate Blanchett's villain, and her backstory was interesting, but her motivation was just as bland as every other villain these days. She hints at some interesting stuff about Asgard white-washing its history to hide the past cruelties, but that never creates any conflict between Thor and Odin/Loki. Jeff Goldblum's character was fun but underused, Tessa Thompson was good but underused. I just feel like if the movie had gone for a bit more heart and a bit less comedy then this could have been another Iron Man.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Baby Driver is a fun run-of-the-mill action movie, but it's not as spectacular as the reviews would have you believe. The driving sequences are good, but the inter-personal conflicts are far too contrived. It's a heist movie, it's not hard to come up with good reasons for tension between criminals, and yet Baby Driver bends over backwards to create artificial tension with random thugs picking a fight with Baby even after he's saved their bacon. The movie also leans heavily on a romance that just doesn't really work all that well in my opinion, the girl is hopelessly in love with Baby from their first scene and it doesn't really go anywhere after that. Finally, Baby's over-wrought conscience is a bit hard to square with his actions in the film. We're supposed to see him as a good kid in a bad spot, but he is an accessory to dozens of serious crimes and put civilians in danger constantly. In the end, I would recommend Drive instead, but Baby Driver is still a good time.

A long slog in need **** editor. There's a great movie in here about friendship, war, and the wounds that soldiers carry long after the battle is over. But The Deer Hunter spends a huge stretch on an overlong wedding scene at the beginning and then gives short shrift to critical dramatic moments. The war elements feel like vague flashbacks, we never see the characters' transformation through the war, just a kind of before and after. Hard video cuts also rob several dramatic moments of their tension. I feel that a good editor could make this film much better.

Great characters and direction are wasted in this magical outing for the simple fact that the music is utterly forgettable. For a film so focused on music and theater, it can't manage to pull together any creative effort that breaks the mold. The great musical films have you walking out of the theater with a song in your head that you just can not get out of your mind: Singin' in the Rain, White Christmas, Moulin Rouge's Come What May. None of the songs in La La Land leave any kind of lasting impression. And though Stone and Gosling have good screen presence, it's hard to imagine that there weren't better dancers/singers on offer in LA's sprawling theater scene. Several of the dance scenes and songs seem limited by their talents, and the movie's core message about ambition and creativity would have been much more powerful if the film featured true no-names rather than a highly successful actor and actress.

A fun premise, but the film rarely takes full advantage of it. A roadside bar in West Virginia seems like a good place to find some interesting characters, but we never get to see any. A Nascar race seems like a perfect location for some fun heist hijinks, but instead we just get some cashiers and a few security guards. The main character's motivation is pretty weak: laid off for some uninteresting reason, not really struggling for money (his daughter seems well cared for), and he's not motivated by revenge. We meet a few characters that seem to hold promise, but they ultimately disappoint, and the film decides that there's just going to be one scene where we bring out everyone's quirks, then those quirks are absent from the rest of the film. A cursed high school quarterback, an Iraq War vet, two morally dubious religious converts, and an eccentric bomber sounds like a great setup with plenty of ways they could play against one another. But few of the fun scenes that you'd imagine ever materialize, and the long/uninspired editing doesn't do the film any favors. The film also has an awkwardly long epilogue, which is one of the few times that I've thought that a montage would have improved a film (rather than awkwardly lingering on characters for 20 unneeded minutes). There are a few genuinely good laughs and the heist is solid, but this ultimately feels like a film that needed a few more drafts of the script and a much more quirky editor.

A decent, middle-of-the-road war movie. The evacuation at Dunkirk was one of the most harrowing, nail-biting moment of World War 2, and this film somehow manages to drain all the narrative out of it. The action is great, and there's plenty of tension. But the film is pretty scattershot, jumping around in time and locations with no real narrative arc driving it. It felt like watching three separate movies about the same event, all directed by the History Channel.

A great science fiction romp. The film speeds by so many interesting visuals and ideas pulling you into the next one before you've barely caught your breath. However, this is definitely not a film for everyone, it is outlandish and bizarre and will often contradict its own world's rules several times in the same scene. You should definitely go in with more of a Monty Python mentality and less of a Star Wars mentality. The only major issue I had was with a 30-minute plot cul de sac right in the middle of the film. Rihanna shows up for a goofy and awkward side story that should have been completely cut from the final film; it merely provides a long distraction from the main plot and adds nothing to the overarching story. I love that she's bringing people into the theaters for fun action sci-fi films like Battleship and Valerian, but they're clearly creating custom characters for her that just aren't very good. I loved everything before she shows up and after she leaves.

This is one of those movies that somehow takes a preposterous budget and a spectacular premise and turns in a load of garbage. It's depressing to see so much money and effort put into great CG only to have it ruined by atrocious editing and an awful script. It isn't even campy or fun, it's just awful. There are twice as many characters as there should be, and there's a ridiculous obsession with rehashing old gags for nostalgia. There's no focus whatsoever. I love sci-fi and I love campy movies, but this was just awful.

Alfred Hitchcock once said "what is drama but life with the dull bits cut out." Paterson is life with all the interesting bits cut out. This could have made a great short at 5 minutes or a decent film essay about mundanity at 20 minutes, but at 118 minutes this movie is like watching glaciers melt. If Paterson achieves anything, it will make you remember why people love Hollywood blockbusters. Life is boring enough without taking two hours to watch a boring bus driver write boring poetry in a boring place. This is a film that only a critic could love.

All style, no substance. After your star dispatches 12 baddies without breaking a sweat in his first action sequence, there's no tension. It's like watching a game of whack-a-mole as Keanu points his prop gun at the stunt doubles and they fall over while missing him with every shot. Unlike Rambo/Die Hard/The Raid/Dredd or any other worthwhile action flick, John Wick has no motivation and its sense of humor is merely passable. It sports a completely unnecessary 20 minute code on the end that just rehashes the 20 minutes that came before that. The director could at least have set up action scenes where it was plausible that the character would win through strategy or planning, but instead he literally walks into the middle of a room and then starts shooting. This is just a mediocre thoughtless action movie.

This is what a horror film would look like if the Puritans had horror films back in the 1600s, and it really hits the mark. The film understands atmosphere and allows scenes to breathe. The director somehow coaxed very strong performances from not one, but four child actors. While many modern horror films try to raise the stakes with snotty teenagers discussing hell, in this film hell feels like a real and terrifying prospect to the pious characters. The Witch is a bold risk and it's worth a watch.

Marred by plenty of plot holes and inconsistencies. The villains have very weak motivation, with the implied arch-villain receiving less than 30 seconds of screen time. The editing takes you out of the movie at several points, and dramatic moments are given short-shrift.

It's a good movie, but not quite as good as the critics are painting it. The film tries to tie in two big concepts, one about communication, and another about time. In the end those concepts get somewhat muddled and open a number of plot holes that were obvious even on a first viewing, and would be positively glaring on repeat viewings. The atmosphere is great and the acting is spot on, but the film is a bit hampered by a script and plot that starts off strong and then begins to droop towards the end.

A good, sci-fi war movie. It was entertaining throughout and had several moments that made me go "that was really cool". There are plenty of well-worn tropes in Spectral, but they're executed well. If you like movies like Dredd, Red Dawn, or Aliens, you'll probably enjoy this one too.

Five episodes in, no film franchise should still feel this fresh. They are still crafting unforgettable and creative sequences that suspend disbelief but don't strain it. Just like watching Hunt rappel from a ceiling in MI1, parachute from a **** in MI2, break out of a Russian prison in MI3, you're not likely to forget his exploits in this one. Beyond the great action, there are solid characters and a fun plot. There's about one too many double-crosses for my taste, but the overall experience is still as fun as ever.

Spectre is by far the laziest of the Craig films. They've unlearned the subtle personal touch of Skyfall and replaced it with empty spectacle. The writers tried to raise the stakes of the plot by introducing a villain claiming to have masterminded everything in the past four films, and it falls utterly flat. There was no work to build that payoff, and the attempt to reach into Bond's childhood past fails even more. Beyond the big plot failures, there are a half-dozen small things that break the film's flow: despite having been temporarily (if not permanently) debilitated Bond fights off a dozen men with incredible precision, after saying "I love you" another character decides to walk away from the relationship in the very next sequence, and finally "now we know what M stands for, 'moron'" must be the worst line in Bond history.

Slightly too goofy for my taste, at times this can feel more like Galaxy Quest than Star Trek. Good action, fairly boiler-plate plot, mediocre script. The most glaring issue was the awful editing, and I mean BvS bad. Lines that weren't audible or trampled over by a quick cut, unnecessary scenes spliced in that added nothing, or fast-paced cuts that obscure the action. Every major blockbuster of 2016 has featured this slap-dash editing, and it defies all reason. You've already shelled out hundreds of millions to get the stars and effects on screen, why not spend at least a little time making sure that the movie is watchable?

Safe and somewhat stale. They missed a big opportunity to address climate change, with just a couple throwaway lines "people have no respect for sea life", and instead went for a meek and predictable sequel storyline. This one fails to raise the stakes or build in the way that Toy Story's sequels did, it's just Finding Nemo re-written with Dory as the star.