Movie Reviews

IT: Chapter One

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  • Title: IT: Chapter One
  • IMDb: link

IT: Chapter One movie reviewIT isn’t the first time Stephen King’s novel of the same name has been adapted, although it is the first time it has been made into a theatrical release. There are some noticeable differences between the 1990 two-part television mini-series and the latest version from director Andy Muschietti, most notably that this version only offers half the story and alters the timeline of events considerably.

Now set in the late 1980s, the original story arc introduces us the town of Derry and a group of kids who are all outsiders (Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Wyatt Oleff) who band together in a Losers club for protection against a local bully (Nicholas Hamilton) and something far more sinister (Bill Skarsgård) living in the town’s sewers abducting children. Called “It” by the kids who discover they are not alone in the odd horrific visions each has seen, nearly all of which include an appearance by a scary clown named Pennywise who enjoys frightening and torturing children nearly as much as it does pulling them into the sewer to feed on during his periods of hibernation.

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I Do… Until I Don’t

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  • Title: I Do… Until I Don’t
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I Do... Until I Don't movie reviewDolly Wells stars as a documentary filmmaker with a personal vendetta against marriage who sets out to prove that the concept no longer works in a modern world. In order to prove her thesis that matrimony should only last for seven years (with an option to renew), the filmmaker sets her sights on three unhappy Florida couples: a pair of senior citizens (Paul Reiser and Mary Steenburgen), a middle-aged couple (Lake Bell and Ed Helms) struggling with money and starting a family, and pair of free-love hippies (Wyatt Cenac and Amber Heard).

Writer, director, and star Lake Bell may have won me over with 2013’s In a World…, but her latest is severely lacking in charm (while sadly having no lack of cliche to fall back on). After an hour of insufferable characters who only really begin to show small moments humanity in the film’s last half-hour, I Do… Until I Don’t is like the first date from hell that only gets bearable as it nears its end. Even the few moments of genuine emotion we see in the last half-hour are sullied by the script falling back into the contrivance of the filmmaker’s project in its final few moments.

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The Hitman’s Bodyguard

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  • Title: The Hitman’s Bodyguard
  • IMDb: link

The Hitman's Bodyguard movie reviewWhen searching for something, anything, positive to say about a bad movie you can almost always fall back on “Well, at least it was in focus.” Sadly, I can’t even offer that most basic of compliments to The Hitman’s Bodyguard in which any strong ambient light destroys the focus of the shot, highlighting characters in a fuzzy glow while blurring out the entire background in a bizarrely amateurish manner.

Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson star in an uninspired buddy comedy about a once-proud bodyguard and his newest client, a man who has attempted to kill him on numerous occasions, who he needs to deliver in time to testify against a bland movie villain (Gary Oldman) for reasons that only makes sense in a script where things explode for no reason whatsoever.

Although there are some minor chuckles to be had (mostly from the pair adlibbing), and one strong chase sequence around the canals of Amsterdam, The Hitman’s Bodyguard is an uninspired mess featuring two actors screaming at each other for the better part of two hours.

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Atomic Blonde

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  • Title: Atomic Blonde
  • IMDb: link

Atomic Blonde movie reviewIt’s easy to compare Atomic Blonde to John Wick. Charlize Theron stars as a talented killer who will leave a wide swath of bodies in her wake through a series of well-executed stunt sequences. Director David Leitch (who was un-credited for directing some scenes in the previously-mentioned Keanu Reeves action flick) takes the helm and brings the same energy and feel to this project. However, the comparison only goes so far.

One of the things that makes John Wick work is the simplicity of its premise. Wick is a revenge story without the need for plot to get in the way. The character is wronged and spends the rest of the film seeking vengeance. Adapted from the comic of the same name, Atomic Blonde is an entirely different animal. Rather than a stylish revenge fantasy, the new film is a spy story that relies on several twists and turns. These begin to drag out (especially during a convoluted final act) before eventually getting us to the end of secret agent Lorraine Broughton’s (Theron) journey. It doesn’t help that Leitch fails to take advantage of the setting (this movie never feels like a Cold War spy thriller) or that many of the twists are either easy to see coming and/or create some large plot holes no one is eager to address.

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Valerian and the Station of a Thousand Special Effects

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  • Title: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
  • IMDb: link

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets movie reviewsWhether you are an optimist and view a glass of water as half-full or a pessimist and view it as half-empty, the fact is that there’s only water in half the glass. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a lot like that. Sure, half the glass is filled with terrific imagery and an impressively designed world. There are creatures, gadgets, and CGI aplenty. And even when the sci-fi plot gets a bit dicey it still has a cohesive plot (which is more than I can say for all films released this week). It would be easy to praise Valerian for only the things it does right and just as easy to slam it for all it gets wrong. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

The latest from director Luc Besson is based on the French comic series Valérian and Laureline. As in the comic, our story centers around a pair of spatio-temporal agents Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne). The script offers a glimpse into the contastly flirting partners’ lives aboard their ship and a mission that gets out of control before the film begins in earnest as the pair are called back to Alpa (the future version of the Intranational Space Station with thousands of aliens on board hurtling through space).

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