Every trailer for a Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby) directed movie over the last decade-plus has made the film look like it’s a guaranteed Best Picture nominee. Whether that proves to be fruition (American Sniper, Flags of Our Father) or not even close (The 15:17 to Paris, Hereafter) doesn’t affect how great the trailers are. Over the last 15 years, Eastwood-directed movies have earned hundreds of millions more combined than they would have otherwise received had they not had terrific trailers. And this is true with 2018’s The Mule. After seeing the trailer for The Mule for the first time back in early October of 2018, the film instantly vaulted to my most anticipated movie of the year. When it wasn’t screened very much before its opening, I got a little worried. Then I saw the mixed reviews start to come in. At the time of this writing, The Mule has a 62% critics square and a 74% audience score, numbers that were a little lower than I anticipated based on the trailer, but right around what I expected them to be after seeing the film.
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Category Archives: Michael Pena
The Martian (2015)
Fans of the self-published debut novel will not be disappointed by Ridley Scott’s (Alien, Gladiator) adaptation of Andy Weir’s The Martian. This is a good movie that should be viewed in 3D on the largest screen that you can see it on. While it doesn’t come close to delivering the same experience as Gravity or even Interstellar, it is one of the rare movies that truly benefits by being seen in 3D. Before I get into this review, I want to mention that I will try to write it from the standpoint of someone who has not read the fictional novel as best as I can, as I know this is something that most people have not read. With that said, I will refer to the novel. I will also give some spoilers, but I will provide notice before diving into any of these. If you read around the paragraphs marked spoilers, you will be okay with reading this review before seeing this movie. The Martian is a very good movie, but it is not great. I was not disappointed by it. If I hadn’t read the novel, I think that maybe the trailers and the hype would have left me wanting more. This movie currently sits as my #6 movie of 2015, but I think there is less than a 1% chance it will finish in my end-of-year top 10. It didn’t have the emotional impact Gravity had, nor does it have the What did I miss? I need to watch this movie again type of feeling Interstellar had. Also, as I will mention, something was missing overall from the performances especially considering that Scott landed the cast of the year. While I will heavily critique this movie, I again want to say that I really liked the movie. It was a very good adaptation of the book. It held my interest throughout its 2 hour and 14-minute time frame.
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Ant-Man (2015)
I’ll preface this review by saying that I enjoyed Ant-Man, but that I know that if I do end up seeing Ant-Man 2, I will not enjoy it. I say that because traditionally I like superhero origin stories (except for when that same character gets retold over and over and over again like Superman, which…on a side note, I have yet to see a Superman movie that I’ve even remotely enjoyed, but that I am expecting HUGE things from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). However, as with over 90% of movies that have sequels, superhero movies generally get worse (usually much worse) with each subsequent release. Of course, there are exceptions. Batman Begins was fantastic, but The Dark Knight is possibly the greatest superhero movie ever made. Iron Man and Spider-Man are both amazing movies, but there wasn’t much drop-off to Iron Man 2 or Spider-Man 2. Now Iron Man 3 and Spider-Man 3 were both much worse. But when you think about it, when is the 5th, 4th, or 3rd movie of a franchise ever really the best one? Hardly ever. 90% of the time, it’s the first franchise movie that is the best. I wish viewer franchises would make movies. I wish even fewer movies would be remade. But that is a different topic for another day. Regarding Ant-Man, the best thing that it had going for it was its originality. I cannot think of a scenario where Ant-Man 2 would have any originality that this first movie had. But, of course, we know Ant-Man 2 is coming. And then Ant-Man will probably end up in The Avengers movies, and I’ll look back on this first movie less positively.
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Lions for Lambs (2007)
I think when I first saw the trailers for director Robert Redford’s (Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It) Lions for Lambs, I thought it was a movie I had to see. The previews made the film look exciting, and it was loaded with A-list actors. Well, when the commercials for the movie became 15-second clips after the first week and the movie scored a whopping 27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the need to see it quickly waned. The movie earned just $15 million at the box office. Box office earnings don’t necessarily represent the quality of a film, but this movie hoped to garner a lot of money. While the production costs of this movie were low (I’ll explain below), stars like Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise commanded high-dollar figures for their appearances. This wasn’t a little indie movie. MGM produced this movie. On top of a film that was received so poorly by critics was a plot (stories about the war in the Middle East, especially political-driven ones) that had consistently kept moviegoers away back in the early 2000s. Lions for Lambs was a decent movie, but certainly not a great one. And it was by no means as exciting and as drama-filled as the trailers portrayed it to be. Lions for Lambs is a dialogue-driven movie and one that succeeds because it was chalked full of such great actors.
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Fury (2014)
David Ayer’s (Harsh Times, End of Watch) Fury is a mix of bits and pieces from about every war movie you’ve ever seen. It’s Saving Private Ryan meets Apocalypse Now meets Black Hawk Down meets platoon sprinkled in with a little bit of The Perfect Storm (nonwar movie). It unsuccessfully tries to tug on your emotions while trying to tell fragments of stories about each of the five main characters. If you were to just read spoilers for this movie, you might think this movie is fantastic. The trailer makes the film look incredible.
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