The Reel World

"I know this world is just a game, but this place, these people, that's all I have. So I'm not gonna be the good guy. I'm gonna be a great guy." 

Free Guy is the love letter to video gamers of all ages that Ready Player One should have been. While Ready Player One spent most of its resources on spectacle and a rather convoluted mythology, Free Guy allows the heart to come from the characters and plays out as something much closer to the passion and attachment players have long felt for their favorite games and game characters. The film manages to do this without giving up on the spectacle. There's plenty of that computer-generated magic here, enough to immerse us in the AI world of the game. But the film manages to reach out and connect to the humanity behind the games far better than Ready Player One could do at its best moments. That isn't to say this is a perfect film. There are tons of flaws, and it's not exactly the most original concept out there. In fact you'll find extreme elements of both Groundhog Day and The Truman Show, and Ryan Reynolds has almost become a cliche in this kind of wisecracking, irreverent-but-charming character. Think Deadpool without ... you know ...  the F-bombs and the bloody violence. But take all of that "been there/seen that" aspect of the film, and you walk away smiling a little and totally entertained. Sounds like a fun summer movie to me.

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that Disney/Marvel decided to fire James Gunn over a couple of tweets and Warner Brothers decided to scoop up the talented director to helm a reboot of The Suicide Squad. Personally, I feel this was the best move WB has done with their DC film projects since the Christopher Nolan Batman films. I’ll come out and say it: I haven’t been a fan of the DC cinematic universe. Wonder Woman and Shazam were decent, but they simply don’t hold up to what Marvel has been able to produce. While I’m fine with attempting to tell more mature storylines and appeal to an older audience, my biggest problem with the DC films is that they just weren’t fun (Shazam is perhaps the only exception to this). I’m not part of the “Release the Snyder cut” crowd; instead I just want to see a comic book film that can be entertaining and not take itself too seriously, and that brings me back to James Gunn. I’m a fan of Gunn. I absolutely adore what he’s done with The Guardians of the Galaxy, those are both in my top 5 of the Marvel films, because I love how he handles the group of misfit heroes. I even like Gunn’s earlier work like Super and especially Slither, his cinematic story of coming out of Troma I view as one of the best underdog stories in Hollywood and how he’s become an A-list director. The moment he signed on for The Suicide Squad I was excited. In my mind I felt this was what WB/DC and movie fans in general needed. Giving Gunn the freedom to make the film he wanted to make could seem like a risk, but I think Gunn had something to prove after being released by Disney, and the result is cinematic bliss that is the injection of gory comic book mayhem that fans have been waiting for.

While this take on The Suicide Squad does have characters and actors returning in the same roles from the previous attempt at Suicide Squad by director David Ayer, do yourself a favor and just pretend that film doesn’t exist.  Heck, I even reviewed the film just about five years ago to the day, and while the film does have some fun moments, it just doesn’t hold up after further viewings, though I’d still love to see a Joker and Harley Quinn date night movie, but that’s a whole other discussion.

Going all the way back to 2003 when Disney released The Haunted Mansion and The Pirates of the Caribbean, it seemed like the natural progression would be to release a film based on the theme parks Jungle Cruise ride. With the success of the Johnny Depp-helmed films, Disney instead elected to crank out more Pirates of the Caribbean films. Sure, the original trilogy was fun, but the two that followed were forgettable messes.  Now it’s 2021, and we’ve finally gotten a Jungle Cruise film helmed by one of the biggest stars in cinema, Dwayne (don’t call me The Rock) Johnson and Emily Blunt sharing top billing credit. The trailers teased a film that was in the vein of the Indiana Jones films, something I believe could be a good thing. What was somewhat expected was the added layer of a supernatural element put into the film. While I was excited about the supporting cast and even the director that came aboard to helm the film, the one thing that bothered me was how long it’s been since I’ve actually enjoyed a live-action Disney film. With the talent involved, I felt there was plenty of opportunity for the film to be a success, but I couldn’t help but worry when I remembered the awful cinematic experience that Aladdin was. I’ll be blunt; I went in optimistic with that film because I’m a long time Guy Ritchie fan, but I really hated Aladdin. So what did I think of Jungle Cruise?

I have to admit I got excited as the film started up with the logo, and I’m hearing the melody from a Metallica song. We get an introduction to The Tears of the Moon, a mythic tree with healing capabilities that is hidden within the South American jungle.  Our introduction to Emily Blunt’s character kind of threw me off. Everything seemed to point to her being a strong female lead, perhaps delivering a female version of Indiana Jones, though more concerned with biology than archeology, but the result was something rather different … Throughout the introduction of Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt), all I could think of was the character Rachel Weisz played in the Mummy films, smart but adorably clumsy and always getting into trouble by mistake. Not exactly the strong female lead I was expecting. In fact I feel this movie plays much closer to the Mummy franchise than it does with anything else. Well, Lily finds an arrowhead that is believed to help lead the way to finding The Tears of the Moon. Unfortunately Lily isn’t the only one after finding the mythic tree; a German Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons) is also looking to acquire the tree.

I guess you could say I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with M. Night Shyamalan movies. There are some that I really enjoy (i.e. The Sixth Sense, The Village, The Unbreakable Trilogy) and then there are those I’m just not fond of (i.e. The Last Airbender, After Earth, The Happening). When it comes to his new film, Old, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the film. There are several elements that I enjoyed, such as the premise, certain characters and their actors’ performances, but then in some instances the story felt underdeveloped, and certain actors were typecast. All in all, as the credits rolled I found myself with mixed feelings about what I’d just seen, and now with time to reflect, I’m still not a hundred percent sure how I feel about the film.

Let’s start with the elements that I enjoyed, such as the film’s premise. Several people get trapped on a beach where time appears to be accelerated, essentially making thirty minutes on the beach the equivalent of one year of their life. This a very intriguing undertaking that is full of suspense, as it ups the pressure to escape, as there is literally no telling which second could be your last. However, I did not feel that the severity of the situation was adequately addressed early on. The group comes to understand their situation quite quickly, but they are more wrapped up in their own personal issues than they are in figuring out a way to escape. Granted, there is a force that is preventing them from escaping, but I don’t feel that we got a good explanation as to what that force is. I feel that some time should have been devoted to that rather than all the individual storylines.

"Before I was an Avenger, I made mistakes ... and a lot of enemies."

To say that Scarlett Johansson's solo Black Widow film is overdue is one of the understatements of the decade. Fans of the MCU have been calling for the character to have a film of her own; all the while characters like Captain America, Iron Man and Thor ended up well into their third films with the character playing key roles in the threads that pulled all of these films and characters together. Marvel often assured us it would eventually happen, but it sure appears to have taken too long. It didn't help that the character dies in the final Avengers film, and it seemed less likely she would or even could get her own film by then. But Marvel kept assuring us that it was going to come. So we waited again for the character's life-after-death coming-out party. Of course, being dead isn't quite the damper it used to be, particularly in these superhero films. And with the MCU about to enter into the long-running comic staple of the multiverse (which is also true of the DCU) there is a good chance that, as they say in the comics, she might "get better". But when this film finally did appear to come together, the world was forced to wait through several date changes and another year of anticipation because of the unexpected arrival of COVID-19 on the real world scene. So we waited for another year, all the while praying the film would not fall to the ever-increasing trend of finally just releasing long-delayed theatrical films on streaming services and skipping the lines at the box office. The only real letdown is that after seeing the film,v it will feel like it was delayed far too long.

The year 2020 and nearly half of 2021 make up a time in our lives we'd all like to try to forget. And while the remnants of a pandemic that is not quite over still intrude on our realities, many aspects of our lives are starting to return. We're spending time with our family and friends again. Those simple parts of our lives we once took for granted are starting to return, and I suspect we're all apt to savor them just a little bit more from now on. The movies have been back for a little while now. We've finally started getting access to press screenings for the first time in over a year. Needless to say, so many of us are happy to be back in the theaters. So far we've had some films start to breathe life back into the box office, but today expectations remain lower, and they will for a while. We've had some successful films, and you can feel it in the air. Somewhere, somehow, there's got to be a film just itching to break open the floodgates and give us our first real break-out blockbuster in 18 months. Fasten your seatbelts, because I think the day has finally arrived, and while it isn't going to be anything like it might have been two years ago, I think that F9: The Fast Saga is going to be the first hit film since the arrival of the pandemic.

Dominic (Diesel) is learning to live the quiet life with Letty (Rodriguez) and her newfound memories and Dom's little girl. The gang has been through a lot, and it seems like it's time to kick back. Of course, that would be one boring film, and for a franchise built on 100% adrenaline, that's not really going to work out for us. Dom gets a visit from an old friend from the feds to tell him that Mr. Nobody (Russell) is in trouble. He was on a plan transporting old villainess Cipher (Theron) and a dangerous weapon when his plane ran into trouble and crashed. He needs help. With this new weapon in the wrong hands, the world needs help, and Dom and Letty need to get the old band back together for another crazy globetrotting mission. Returning is Roman (Gibson), Mia (Brewster), Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Emmanuel). They find the plane and almost recover the goods when they discover who is leading the bad guys. It's a cat named Jacob, played by John Cena, who it turns out is Dom's brother. Yeah, the one he never ever mentioned through seven movies while talking so much about family. This one might be hard to swallow, so we get treated to a rather rich back story about Dom's family. We get to see him in his younger days helping his father who was a professional racer, and we see the event that caused the brothers to go their separate ways, and it’s strong enough that we get why Dom hasn't ever told anyone. It's one of the more interesting story elements of the franchise and is told through flashbacks throughout the film.

“Boring is still always best.”

To preface this review, I feel I should tell you just how big a fan I am of the original film (The Hitman’s Bodyguard). It’s a movie that I have watched more times than I can count. There is something about that film for me that just works. Maybe it is the chemistry between Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, the way that they perfectly play off one another. Perhaps it’s that there is an air of philosophy to it, where they both argue that their occupation is just and the manner in which they argue it is so passionate that you can see both sides of the argument. Maybe it’s just the fact that it was chock full of action. Either way, suffice to say this movie holds a special charm for me. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the sequel, which in my opinion was an unnecessary cash grab. This is evident by the film’s presentation, because while the themes that made the first film great are all there, the execution is choppy and rushed, destroying what could have been a really great sequel.

Every decade or so sees the popularity of a Broadway stage show become something of a cultural phenomenon. When I was young, Cats and Annie were the big-event shows. Over the years it's been Andrew Lloyd Webbers Phantom Of The Opera and more recently Rent. In these last few years the stage champ has been Hamilton, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. To say that it has been one of the more popular shows in the last few years would be an understatement. Based very loosely on the historical life of Alexander Hamilton, it is still currently the hardest ticket to get in New York City. Lost in the excitement and fame over Hamilton is that Miranda has had another rather large success with In The Heights. The play was selected best musical in 2003. While it never did come close to the success of Hamilton, it was also once a hard ticket to obtain. Just one year after Hamilton made it to the big screen, In The Heights will get its chance to offer moviegoers something to help bring them back to the cinemas.

As the film begins, we are introduced to Usnavi (Ramos) (there's a rather amusing story about how he got the unusual name), who has gathered a few children together to tell them a story. We are introduced to the idea of suenito, or a little dream. And that's the theme that will carry you through Usnavi's tale. It all takes place in a little corner of New York City called Washington Heights. We're encouraged to say it out loud so that it won't disappear. And that's where it all happens. We are introduced to a few of the citizens of this cultural neighborhood who each have their own little dream. Usnavi runs a neighborhood bodega, but his little dream is to return to his native Dominican Republic, where he dreams of rebuilding his father's destroyed bar and living in his own corner of paradise. He's not the only one with a dream. He's trying to connect with Vanessa (Barrera), who works for a local hair salon that is about to be yet another business leaving the neighborhood. She finds she can't find a place where she's going to be accepted in that new neighborhood, and her little dream is to have a fashion boutique where she can design and sell clothes.

What James Wan did with  The Conjuring (2013) was something I don’t think anyone expected. He not just delivered a haunted house film that’s genuinely scary as well as being a technical achievement, but also he kicked off a successful franchise that’s now seven films deep with no signs of stopping. I’ll admit when it comes to the stories about Ed and Lorraine Warren, I have a bit of a bias. I’m a sucker for just about any and every paranormal show out there, and I’ve read numerous books about the Warrens and their case files.  Everything from the “true” story behind the Amityville house, the “real” Annabelle, to some of the not-so-famous cases (at least the ones we haven’t seen a movie about). Whether you believe in the paranormal or feel the Warrens were nothing more than skilled hoaxers, the stories behind their cases are the stuff that will always make for a great campfire story, and as it’s been proven, some successful and entertaining films. So when it was announced that the next film was going to be about case where a man being put on trial and using the defense of possession, claiming the devil made him commit the crime, I was excited. Seeing how this was a real murder case that the Warrens were involved with, I was hoping we’d see a break from the traditional possession and haunted house film and delve into a courtroom drama. Alas, that isn’t the case. While the new film does take a somewhat different approach, I definitely have some mixed feelings on this one.

My biggest concern from the get-go about this film was that James Wan was not involved with directing the film. Granted he may have only done The Conjuring and its sequel, but I feel we can all agree those films outshine the other entries in the franchise by a great deal. Wan is simply one of the best directors working in film period. Though he may only stick to genre films, his work with crafting stories and his work with a camera is well above many of his contemporaries in the genre. Then to decide to have Michael Chaves, the director of The Curse of la Llorona helm the film was immediately cause for concern for me. To be blunt, I hated that film, and it was one of the worst films I saw that year.  The saving grace was that at least Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga would be reprising their roles of Ed and Lorraine.

“All I know is that girl came into your life for a reason.”

A love story that transcends time and space. Now, granted, this is not a brand new occurrence; we’ve seen several examples of characters falling in love despite not being from the same time. I mean, there’s The Time Traveler’s Wife with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams (which is currently slated to become an HBO series featuring Theo James and Rose Leslie), Kate and Leopold with Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan, and who could forget About Time with Domhnall Gleeson and again Rachel McAdams. However, I dare say that Long Weekend may have just revitalized the idea. It certainly managed to hold my interest despite a twist that took this film out of the realm of the traditional romance and infused it with a little bit of science fiction. Initially when the science fiction was introduced, I couldn’t help my eye roll, especially given that it was spoken aloud, it was literally the last thing that I expected to hear. On the surface, it was utterly ridiculous, but on the other hand, it had shock value, and what more can you ask for?