The Reel World

“The past can haunt a man.  That’s what they say. But the past is just a series of moments. Perfect … .complete … a bead on the necklace of time.”

So, an interesting factoid that I learned about the film’s director Lisa Joy: she is the sister-in-law of director Christopher Nolan. This doesn’t really add anything to the review, just an interesting fact that I thought I’d share. Then again, I do remember thinking when the film first opened up that it felt very shades-of-Nolan. Not to say that Nolan had any influence over the film, but just the idea of a movie based off a construct is very much in his wheelhouse. Memory is the construct that is explored in this film, and I must admit that the addictive nature in which the film portrays this construct did have some appeal; however, the film tries to bring too many different themes and elements together, and it results in not enough attention being paid to any of them. Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson are the film’s big draws, and while their electricity helps to make the film decent, it cannot make it great.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.