No Escape is a combination of Behind Enemy Lines, Argo, and World War Z. Unfortunately, it is not nearly as good as any of these movies. In fact, it wasn’t good at all. It certainly wasn’t the worst movie I saw in 2015, but so far it’s been the most disappointing. The previews for this movie make it look great. If you’ve seen any movie this summer, you’ve undoubtedly seen the extended clip of Owen Wilson, in a last-ditch effort to save his family, hurling his young daughter from the roof of one building to another. It makes the movie look like the most intense movie of the year. Unfortunately, this scene is easily the best of the film, and the movie ultimately falls apart after that. Unfortunately, there is no escape from my giving this movie a poor review. It’s so bad that it’s not even the best movie named No Escape. The 1994 Ray Liotta effort was much better and more deserving of your time.
Category Archives: 2015
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Straight outta Compton and straight into the Oscar buzz. It’s early, and this movie will be forgotten by Halloween (just like most of the great films released in the first eight or nine months of each year). Still, for now, this movie is hot with audiences (over $100 million grossed in its first eight days) and critics (89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), like just about any other movie of the year. As I will explain in my review below, Straight Outta Compton didn’t do anything (besides the music itself) that was amazing on its own, but it did do just about everything well. I wouldn’t call it the surprise hit of the year, as many other movies flew further under the radar (Ex Machina and The Gift are the two that come to mind for me). Still, it was a movie that could be very good or very bad, depending on the acting, which parts of the story would be told, and, most importantly, the direction. I’ll talk more about F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator, The Italian Job) later in the review, but long story short, he nailed it. Straight Outta Compton was his most challenging and impressive work to date. While I think it’s an extremely long shot based on the history of the Academy and its voting, his name could still be swirling around as a dark horse for Best Director come December.
Ant-Man (2015)
I’ll preface this review by saying that I liked Ant-Man, but that I know that if I do end up seeing Ant-Man 2, I won’t 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 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 my favorite superhero movie. Iron Man and Spider-Man are both incredible 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 want to see even fewer remakes. But that is a different topic for another day. Continue reading Ant-Man (2015)
Trainwreck (2015)
There is a good chance that Trainwreck will go down as the funniest movie of 2015. There doesn’t appear to be a ton of comedies this year, and the one that I was most excited for (Vacation) looks like it’s going to be a dud. Usually, the great comedies of the year are released before September 1st. I have no evidence that backs up this claim, but the good movies reserved for the later portions of the year are the Oscar contenders. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t comedies released in October, November, and December, but there are more average comedies than not. What I am implying here is that the funniest movies of the year have already been released and that Trainwreck seems to be the most amusing of that group. I often mention in my film blog that 2010 was the best movie year of my lifetime. However, there wasn’t that one hilarious comedy you remember from that year. For me, the funniest movie that year was Get Him to the Greek, but that movie had nothing on Trainwreck. Had it been released in 2010, Trainwreck would have made the year that much better.
The Gift (2015)
Joel Edgerton’s (Warrior, Exodus: Gods and Kings) The Gift is easily the surprise hit of the summer. Creepy and suspenseful, this movie is a clinic in developing characters and fully entrenching viewers in the storyline. I saw the film in a theater that was 75% full, and you could hear a pin drop during its quieter moments. Everyone was all-in on the story, and nobody seemed to know where it was headed because of the oohs and aahs at each new twist. Given its 93% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I did not doubt this movie would be good. However, I did not watch a preview beforehand (on purpose), nor did I know anything about the film other than what someone said the night before my viewing that they had heard it had a crazy twist.