Movie Reviews

Triple Frontier

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  • Title: Triple Frontier
  • IMDb: link

Triple Frontier movie reviewWe’ve seen military heist movies before ranging from the likes of Three Kings to Broken Arrow. Unfortunately, Triple Frontier is more like the mixed success of the latter (although it lacks its crazy energy) even though you can almost feel its desperation to be compared to the former.

And while the film is likely to earn comparisons to David O. Russell‘s 1999 film by some, they are hardly the same. The comparisons are marginal and incidental involving the basic set-up of the film and its ensemble cast. To put it simply, Triple Frontier is a B-Movie with an A-List cast that often gets in its own way celebrating the soldiers it turns into mercenaries.

The movie stars Oscar Isaac as a former soldier now working in South America as a consultant for Colombian police struggling to take down a drug lord (Reynaldo Gallegos). Learning his target’s location, and the fact that he’s sitting on millions of dollars of drug money, Pope decides to enlist his old Army buddies (Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal) to head into the jungle, kill the target, and keep all the money for themselves.

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Fighting with My Family

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  • Title: Fighting with My Family
  • IMDb: link

Fighting with My Family movie reviewFlorence Pugh stars as the unconventional Saraya-Jade Bevis in this biopic of a real-life underdog making good. At the time when the WWE was stocking its women’s division with models, the goth indie wrestler from an oddball wrestling family in Norwich, England would seem like a long shot to not only make the WWE roster but excel.

Knowing and trusting his source material, and putting his faith in his young stars, Stephen Merchant allows the stories of both Saraya and her brother Zak (Jack Lowden), who is passed over by the WWE, to unfold. For Zak it’s the struggle of watching his dreams turn to ash while his sister is handed the golden opportunity he’s sought his entire life. And for Saraya it’s struggling to find her place in a larger ring, the one place she has always felt at home but is now full of more obstacles than she ever imagined.

Fighting with My Family is a crowd-pleaser featuring some great supporting performances from the likes of Nick Frost and Lena Headey as Sayara’s parents and Vince Vaughn as the trainer who offers Sayara her chance and pushes her to succeed.

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Marvel’s Carol Danvers

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  • Title: Captain Marvel
  • IMDb: link

Marvel's Carol Danvers movie reviewAfter dabbling in movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel goes all-in on more hardcore sci-fi with their latest film offering a sort-of alien protagonist in a rebellious Kree warrior who arrives on Earth searching for a scientist before the alien-shape-shifting Skrulls can get their hands on her. Complicating matters for Vers (Brie Larson) are her fractured memories of Earth, only recently returned from her interrogation with the Skrulls, which will not only lead her on a search for a missing scientist but also a discovery into who she is.

It may have taken Marvel a decade and DC to greenlight two movies (Wonder Woman and its sequel) before going into production with a lead female protagonist, but the writing and directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck deliver a solid super-hero film that fits somewhere in the lower-upper-half of the MCU. Larson easily carries the film that brings in some fan favorite supporting characters that help liven up the proceedings after a somewhat clunky opening act that spends a lengthy amount of time explaining the Kree, the Skrulls, the war between the two alien races, and Verse’s role with the Kree.

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How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

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  • Title: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
  • IMDb: link

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World movie review2010’s How to Train Your Dragon was a fun film about an awkward Viking prince and his unexpected relationship with the most dangerous creature possible: a dragon. An enjoyable coming-of-age tale featuring dragons and Vikings and centered around the awkward relationships between a boy and his father and that same boy’s relationship to his dog (errr… dragon), the movie spawned a sequel, which was even better than the original, and a television show. With How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Dean DeBlois returns to write and direct the final chapter to Hiccup‘s (Jay Baruchel) story (at least for now).

After stepping up for his fallen father at the end of How to Train Your Dragon 2, the third film in the franchise focuses on Hiccup growing into his leadership role while facing a new threat in a deadly dragon hunter named Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham) and Toothless‘ fascination with another dragon (both of which threaten the status quo of Berk which Hiccup has worked so hard to achieve). Believing it’s the best way to save the dragons and his people, Hiccup leads the Vikings on a search for the mythical hidden world where dragons come from and possibly the only place the Vikings and their dragons can live in peace.

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Alita: Battle Angel

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  • Title: Alita: Battle Angel
  • IMDb: link

Alita: Battle Angel movie reviewWith an interesting character and set-up, but far too much plot for a single film that feels rushed at times while still getting nowhere close to a definitive ending before the credits roll, Alita: Battle Angel is a mixed success. Adapted by director Robert Rodriguez along with James Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis from a manga series, it was no surprise to me that Cameron orginally saw this as a television project rather than a feature film.

The opening where an apparently worthless robot is found in a junkyard only to be revealed as the best warrior ever reminded me more than a little of Real Steel. The junkyard treasure here is a cyborg (Rosa Salazar) who Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) will find, repair, and name after his daughter Alita. Despite her innocent appearance, Alita proves to quite formidable. As with many recent sci-fi films, Alita: Battle Angel has a strong class warfare aspect as all those we meet are living in the dystopian slums with a privileged class living high above in a floating city. Over the course of the film Alita will begin to remember fragments of her past leading her into conflict with the overseer in the skies above.

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