What do you need to know about Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice that you haven’t already been told? This has easily been the most hyped movie of 2016 so far. In fact, there may not be another movie all year that receives this kind of publicity. And rightfully saw. This film pits arguably the most recognizable superheroes in the world against one another for the first time. If you saw a movie in the theater at any point between, say, November 2015 and March 2016, you likely saw a preview for this film. The preview does such a great job of not really letting us know who is the good guy and the bad guy. When we think we figure it out, we see a trailer portrayed in a completely different light. Marvel is doing the same thing with Iron Man and Captain America for the trailers of Captain America: Civil War (maybe even more effectively than the movie being reviewed today). It is interesting. It is even more interesting that these two rival companies are releasing these movies so close to one another. You could make the argument that Marvel could have waited until Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was released and then learned from any mistakes made while also capitalizing on what the Warner Brothers movie did well. But, as we know, that we have delayed production and would have probably pushed this movie to a release date to the beginning of 2018 at the earliest.
Continue reading Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Miss You Already (2015)
Beaches 2 or something more? Maybe somewhere in between. Miss You Already tells the story of two lifelong best friends who have been there for each other at every instance of their lives. Jess (Drew Barrymore – Charlie’s Angels, The Wedding Singer) and Milly (Toni Collette – The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine) have been nearly inseparable since Jess transferred into Milly’s first-grade class in London after moving from the United States. Now, as the pair each approaches her 40th birthday, they are infused with a situation that no one can ever prepare for. Yes, this is both a friendship movie and a cancer movie. Yes, it will do its best to try to guilt you into tears. But, while the acting is not great and the story predictable, something about the movie keeps you interested when a lesser movie would have lost you completely 45 minutes in.
Continue reading Miss You Already (2015)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
In a day and age where it seems like a new superhero movie is getting released every other week, it is hard for an average mainstream moviegoer to know which ones are worth watching, which ones to skip, and what order you should watch these movies. This seems to be particularly important with the Marvel movies and of even more importance with The Avenger movies. I have done my best to see The Avenger movies as they’ve been released, but there have been some that I have found to be terribly along the way, including Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron. It certainly has not helped that Marvel characters who aren’t Avengers (like Spider-Man) are starting to show up in movies featuring The Avengers. It’s only a matter of time before all of these other Marvel characters (Ant-Man, Deadpool, etc.) start appearing in each newly released movie. At that time, it just might be time to give up. Don’t even get me started about the future when either Marvel or DC buys the other out and we get characters like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Thor, Captain America, Flash, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern, Hulk, etc. all end up in the same movie. It won’t occur for a while, but when this market becomes stale many, many years from now, there will be too much money sitting on the table not to do it. Of course, the purists will also be upset those who write the comics (though they most likely already are), but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that money speaks.
Continue reading Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Perhaps one of the most unconventional sequels of all-time, 10 Cloverfield Lane assembles almost no resemblance to 2008’s cult classic Cloverfield other than maybe its name. The movie takes place in rural Louisiana, while Cloverfield takes place in New York City. We never truly know how much 10 Cloverfield Lane is in the future, but we can assume it’s as soon as a couple of days and maybe as long as a couple of weeks. Cloverfield was a shaky camera-found footage film about aliens invading the city. 10 Cloverfield Lane is not that. It’s more like a spin-off than it is a sequel. An alien invasion is a possibility for how these characters find themselves. Still, it is just one of the possibilities described by Howard (John Goodman – Flight, Barton Fink), the film’s antagonist. Goodman might be better than he ever has been before. It certainly is his darker role and the first movie in many, many years (King Ralph anyone) in which he has played a starring role.
Continue reading 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
San Andreas (2015)
Not being a guy who is really into the disaster film genre anymore (I turned off movies like The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 before I was even a third of the way in), I was more than tentative to give San Andreas a chance. It’s a genre that once held great interest to me in my younger days. I enjoyed movies like Independence Day, Deep Impact, Cloverfield while absolutely loving Titanic (my favorite movie of 1997), The Impossible (my favorite movie of 1992), World War Z (my second favorite movie of 2013), I Am Legend (my second favorite movie of 2007), War of the Worlds, The Perfect Storm and, shamefully, Armageddon. But for every success like Deep Impact or Poseidon, there seem to be films like Twister or The Core that set the disaster genre back. So, honestly, when I see a preview for a new disaster movie, my first instinct is to believe that it will be absolutely terrible. If it’s got somewhat of a science-fiction element (like World War Z) or if it is based on a true story (The Impossible) AND it does well with the critics, it gets more of a benefit of the doubt. If it has neither of those things, it most likely will not. I thought of the latter when I saw the first series of trailers for director Brad Peyton (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) San Andreas.
Continue reading San Andreas (2015)