Fighting with My Family– This is a underdog story set in the professional wrestling world. This is the story of Saraya-Jade Bevis, better known as Paige to WWE fans. Starting at 13 years old, we watch her join her family’s wrestling company. When Paige is 18, she and her older brother Zak send a tape of them wrestling over the pond (they were born in Norwich, England) to the WWE’s development division. They are both called over to audition and only Paige is selected into the NXT program.

Family is a pretty predictable coming of age/underdog sports movie. That’s not to say it’s bad in anyway, it’s a lot of fun with a lot of great actors and characters. It follows all the beats to this genre to the letter: low odds of getting selected, sibling rivalry, training is way harder than expected, crisis of self and ability, rousing retribution, cheers at the end. Being about wrestling gives it a breath of fresh air though. There are a lot of WWE cameos and the wrestling scenes are well done. Paige’s family is a big part of this (hence the family) and is easily the strongest part of the story (Zak in particular). There are a lot of good life lessons even if they can be heavy handed at times.

Two quibbles from me. One, Dwayne Johnson is prominently on the movie poster and he’s simply the one wrestler with the longest cameo. Five minutes of screen time across two scenes. I see what you did there marketing team. Second, for the whole movie they show how wrestling is a collaborative sport. It’s not real competition but it’s performance that takes amazing dedication and practice to do. At the end, the event at Wrestlemania is shown as a real fight. Paige never meets her opponent until she walks into the ring, for example. It undermines almost all of the story beats that comes before it. Sure, doing what I want cuts down the “Rocky” like triumph for the finale to show what really happened with preparation, but there are ways to do it.

The Platform– Imagine a prison that’s built vertically underground. One cell, no windows, no hallways, no common areas, stacked on top of each other with two people per cell. In the middle of the cell, there is a hole where a platform lowers from the top. This is how inmates are fed. At floor zero a banquet is placed on the platform and each floor gets 2 minutes to eat what they want. You can imagine what’s left by floor 50…and there are hundreds of floors. It’s possible to go down on your own, you could jump to the level below you (it’s like 20 feet) but it’s really hard to go up as you’d need help from the people above you (not gonna happen).

The movie follows a man named Goreng starting his sentence. His item of choice (everyone is allowed to bring in one item, with some restrictions) is the book Don Quixote, something many of the prisoners he meets question the value of. The Platform is an interesting take on the old question: Can we all just get along? Everyone in “the Hole” is there for various reasons, some we find out are there by choice. This is a place of punishment, make no mistake about it. But the reasoning is, from The Administration that runs it (allegedly, you don’t really know if anyone is telling the truth) “the Hole” is only as bad as those inside make it. The amount of food sent down is enough for everyone. Calorie based, anyway.

The Hole, as Goreng quickly finds out, has it’s own caste system and rules based on what floor you are on. The higher you are in the chain the better you eat. People feel entitled to eat as much as they want because they are higher in the prison stack. Forget the two people directly below you, they are literally worth less than you. The people 25 floors below them? Not even worth thinking about. This system cranks out the worst of humanity and that makes hell on Earth.

Here’s the thing: people are randomly placed in the Hole. There’s seemingly no merit to it. Every two weeks (I think I’m remembering that time right) everyone is knocked out with sleeping gas and moved to a different floor. You wake up on a floor higher than you were before, the better chance you get to eat. This makes people fall into self-preservation mode without a thought. If you were starving for 2 weeks, you are going to consume as much as you can when given the chance. Knowing that you might be starving on the next move puts you on the defensive with everyone.

I love this premise and it offers what I love to do in my own fiction writing: each character is a different perspective in a pressure cooker scenario. How does a person react and why? How did they get here and who were the before this? I’m talk about any of the people Goreng meets because I think it’s important to not know about them going in, it would ruin too much.

The Platform reminds me a lot of the movie Cube that came out in the early 2000s, which I loved. I think that was the first movie I saw that did a bizarre prison concept. This scenario is hard to get right as each scene needs to escalate from the previous one at just the right speed and intensity or it doesn’t work (peaking too early being the big problem). Tough to do a good ending too, which I think this did well. Really interesting to watch and it came out of nowhere so that made it a little more special for me. You can find it on Netflix.

Stuber– When Detective Vic Manning gets a tip-off from one of his informants about a big drug deal going down, Vic races into action to try and nab a drug boss he’s been chasing for years. The timing couldn’t be worse though. That morning Vic got eye surgery and he can barely see. Vic is forced to call an Uber to drive him around town to chase leads and he ends up recruiting the driver, Stu, into a night that doesn’t go the way either expected.

Starring Dave Bautista as Vic and Kumail Nanjiani as Stu, this half a buddy cop movie was a lot of fun. It hits all the marks for this kind of movie. Two opposite people forced to work together, a lot of funny lines, physical gags, and quality action scenes. I’m a big fan of Dave Bautista and he’s just as lovable as you think he’d be in a role like this. Pairing him with Kumail works perfectly, the on-screen chemistry is natural and that makes the life lessons each learn about themselves feel genuine. While Stuber doesn’t do anything new, every movie doesn’t have to. A pleasant surprise, just be aware it’s rated R for cursing and violence. The gore isn’t over the top but a whole lotta people do get shot.

Extraction– This is easily the best original action movie on Netflix right now. I see Chris Hemsworth in military gear on the poster, I have a pretty good idea what the movie is about. And what you think it’s about, you are right: Tyler Rake is a mercenary hired to extract the kidnapped son of a drug lord in Bangladesh. It goes bad, quickly.

Hemsworth has years of experience playing a hero on screen, so this is a fitting role for him. His Thor charm isn’t here with Rake as this character is a mortal who has been put through the ringer while trying to escape his past (yes, you find out what he’s running from). Rake is much more gruff and stoic so there is less here to immediately love. Rake is extremely loyal and despite his murder-for-hire profession, clings to some morals. His time with the kid, named Ovi, is done well and offers a good story arc for all of the main characters (not a fan of the final shot in the movie though).

Since action movies live and die on their action scenes, I’m pleased to report that Extraction delivers on all of them. Incredibly well shot and paced, there are multiple stand out sequences. The crown jewel is the long “one take” chase scene shortly after Rake rescues Ovi from his captors. It’s at least 10 minutes long and is packed with more highlights than I can possibly mention here. Complex is putting it mildly as it looks like you are the camera man, running behind, along side and in front of all the action. Going in and out of cars, up and down stairs, scooching through narrow hallways, flying through windows, all the while bullets, knives, and fists are flying. You have to see it. Plus, that scene is right after a close quarters fight where Rake takes out a pack of guys all by himself, something I didn’t think the movie would top. I’d put the action choreography up there with The Raid. I’m impressed.

Birds of Prey is a riot.

Harley Quinn is on her own after breaking up with Joker and a flood of threats come for their revenge now that she doesn’t have Joker as her partner in crime. While ducking and dodging around Gotham, Harley disrupts Black Mask’s (a.k.a. Roman Sionis) well lubricated criminal operation and that puts his employee Black Canary (a.k.a. Dinah Lance) on a collision course with her. That makes both women collide with a young pickpocket named Cassandra Cain, Detective Renee Montoya who is building a case on Black Mask, and new-on-the-scene assassin Helena Bertinelli (The Crossbow Killer Huntress).

The best part of the Suicide Squad movie, the brilliant Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn to steer this ship by the elastic band of your shorts. Everyone’s lovable comic book maniac brought to life is once again a treat to see. The story is told by her so there’s a fair share of schizophrenic pauses in the narrative to fill in parts of the tale that Harley suddenly realizes you need to know to get the context of what’s going on. An unconventional technique in Hollywood movies, this can throw people as it jumbles the timeline of the movie and makes you question the narrator. I think it works really well. From head to toe, this is Harley and as a fan of the character, I appreciate the effort to realize her like this. She’s far from stable and I think the movie does a good job of showing that off while keeping her likable and even relatable.

Along with Harley’s eccentricities, her movie has a unique look and feel. Going beyond this being a completely female-driven cast, which doesn’t happen too often, the cinematography rides the line between reality and comic book. Wild sets, a color palette that frequently changes from desaturated to colorful insanity and distinct looks for all the major characters. This movie is a looker for sure.

I’m a big fan of this cast. We need more Rosie Perez in our lives. Jurnee Smollett-Bell plays a great straight man as Black Canary to Robbie’s Harley. Chris Messina (Zsasz) and Ewan McGregor (Sionis) are another great duo. Zsasz is portrayed as a more civil psychopath compared to his comic book self here, which is similar to what they did for him in the TV show Gotham. McGregor’s Black Mask chews on every bit of scenery he can get his mouth on; fitting for a murderous, pompous, mob boss. The biggest comic book difference is with Cassandra Cain, who is completely different (comic Cass has a wild background and has been through a few personas over the years). Ella Jay Basco does a good job to start off this new misfit, I expect a lot more from her in future films. My biggest disappointment is with Huntress. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is awesome but she’s barely in this! I want to see her so much more! She’s really funny when she’s on-screen but aside from a quick run-in with Harley near the beginning, she doesn’t meet the others until the last 15 minutes of the movie.

That brings us to the awesome action. Choreographed by the brilliant man behind the John Wick franchise, every action scene is like a street fight with some flashy acrobatics added for flair. It’s pretty close to Jackie Chan style fights where the environment is a key part of every battle. Since just about everyone Harley fights is taller and weighs more, her fighting style is geared to disable and then take down her opponents as fast as possible to keep them from getting a chance to touch her. Hits have a fantastic sense of impact and it gets pretty brutal at times. The whole movie is beautifully shot. No out of control camera work, tasteful use of slow motion, nice wide angles, and minimal cuts make everything easy to follow. The final car chase scene is short but super sweet, I can’t say enough good things about it.

This is one of my favorite DC movies to date. It’s a fun story, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, the cast looks like they had a blast, and it scratches my action itch. Suicide Squad 2 with director/writer James Gunn is up next for Harley. Margot Robbie was a major force in getting Birds of Prey made and I hope she gets to do more of what she wants in this playground. This was a minimal taste of the Birds of Prey characters and now that they are introduced it would be great to see them get integrated into other projects in the DC movie universe as well a sequel that Harley doesn’t need to be the focus of.

Toy Story 4– As good as this movie is, it feels like this has to be the last Toy Story movie. There’s nothing left to do with these characters. Thankfully, I think with the way it ends, everyone who makes it agrees with that idea.

Andy’s little sister, Bonnie, is off to kindergarten and on her first day, she makes a new toy, Forky out of bits and bobs of junk. Woody, the perennial control freak, stows away in Bonnie’s backpack to make sure she’s okay. In spotting for her, he basically co-creates Forky and Woody takes this confused misfit under his wing to shepherd him into this new, important role of a child’s toy.

The movie hits all the familiar Toy Story beats. Identity, purpose, family, and love. Cue another road trip for a series of rescue missions, new toy characters, and escalating shenanigans. It’s been a while since I’ve seen 1-3 but it felt like the autonomy of the toys was out of control in this one. They barely try to hide that they are alive to people. They move around and affect so much out in the open it’s nearly impossible that no one notices them.

As much as it sounds like I’m casting shade all over the place, it is a really good movie. Yeah, it’s familiar, but it’s doing all of it really well. There’s a lot of funny moments with a ton of heart and a great message. The new (Ducky and Bunny!) and reoccurring characters (Bo Peep!) are great. I also really like what they do with the antagonist, Gabby Gabby. A big step up from 2 and 3 where those were way darker and less redeemable. As a whole, this entry feels way more optimistic and dour than 3 (which is my least favorite in the series).

It’s rather obvious to talk about how good Pixar animation is but it has to be said how stunning this movie looks. Especially the backgrounds. They figured out some new technology with lighting and the way they make the movie look like it was shot with real-life cameras that continue to bring this craft to the next level. Great finale to a beloved series.

Venom– This entire movie rides on the shoulders of Tom Hardy, it’s pretty amazing to watch him hold the whole thing together. The last time Venom was in a movie, it was way back in Spiderman 3, which was awful. Shoehorned into a sloppy movie was a meaningless move so it barely counts as a cinematic appearance. So here we have a stand-alone movie for Venom, not even a mention of Spiderman, which is a bold and rather dangerous move. With no web-slinger to immediately draw people in, it was a gamble that more than diehards of 90s comics would show up. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is our main man, so that part of the comics was kept intact. Venom is all origin–how the symbiote landed on Earth and how it manages to attach to Brock. This turns into an anti-hero story where the vicious creature takes a liking to its host and decides to help save Earth and stick around.

With no Spiderman, they needed to cast some serious star power as Eddie Brock to get eyes on what would otherwise be a direct to home video animated movie. Going with, and ultimately Tom committing 100% to this script paid off. Venom made a shocking amount of money at the box office, nearly a billion worldwide. Hardy makes Eddie Brock his own character, giving him a weird accent and a very distinct mannerisms.

When Venom infects Eddie, Hardy gives a wild physical performance that completely sells that his body is being taken over. The first bursts of Venom’s powers are wild and powerful and when he completely takes form, the monster looks awesome. It’s funny, weird, and kinetic energy from there to the end of the movie. Action is very good until the finale. The apartment brawl evokes the creativity of a Spiderman fight and the motorcycle chase is really unique and fun to watch (much better than what was done for Black Panther’s street chase). Despite the overall carnage of the finale, it’s not effective because it’s clearly one shiny black CG blob mushing into a grayish CG blob, at night, on a CG set. It’s frequently too hard to see what’s going on or it has no weight to it. It’s hard to feel engaged despite a good villain set up.

This turned out better than I thought and I’m curious to see where they go for the next one. As much as I liked it, I can’t say it’s worth watching more than once. And if you don’t like the genre, there’s nothing here to change your mind.

I, Tonya– In the early 90s, the women’s figure skating world in the US was led largely by three competitors: Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding, and Kristi Yamaguchi. In 1994, just weeks before the Olympics in Norway, Kerrigan was attacked at practice for the US Nationals by a man hired by Harding’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly. Kerrigan was the defending national champion and a favorite for the Olympics. I, Tonya is the bio-pic of Tonya’s life leading up to that point and few years after.

Harding is played by Margot Robbie and the movie mostly sticks to her perspective. I really liked the storytelling technique used as it’s different from most documentary and investigative pieces you usually watch. Real interviews of the principal participants (Jeff, his friend Shawn, Tonya’s mother LaVona) are recreated by the cast members to fill in the narrative between life events. Each one of them more or less giving their story of what really happened. As you watch Tonya’s childhood until she’s 15 years old, Tonya’s life is told in the traditional way and then Tonya and Jeff start breaking the fourth wall. You’ll be watching them argue in their home, for example, and then Tonya will stop, look at the camera and speak directly to you (“This did not happen”) and then the scene will snap back into motion. It makes the picture feel more like someone is letting you watch their memories and they are interjecting when they feel like they need to make sure you stay on their side. It’s an interesting approach and fosters the constant notion of the unreliable narrator. How much of this is true? How much of this actually happened and if it did, did it really happen like this? Tonya, Jeff, and LaVona have a lot to say about things. LaVona at one point jumps in via an interview segment where she basically feels left out of the story and wants back in…and she does.

What’s shown is years of chaos. Tonya was physically and emotionally abused for years on end starting with her mother. LeVona started Tonya in skating at the age of four and put the weight of the world on her daughter’s shoulders to be the best in the world. Working as a waitress, LeVona put all her spare money into paying for Tonya’s skating career and you guess how many times she would bring that up anytime Tonya “talked back” to her. Tonya had a natural talent for figure skating and she grew by leaps and bounds with the proper training.

Tonya never fit into anything, an outsider who struggled to be noticed and appreciated. Her dad left her mom when Tonya was young, she grew up poor, she was never accepted into the figure skating world. She didn’t look the part, act the part, talk like the other girls. She was counter to the very stuffy and wealthy culture of competitive skating. She painted her nails wild colors, chose rock and metal music instead of classical to skate to. She never had the money to buy the proper costumes, so she made a lot of them. One of the best parts is when they show Tonya hunting rabbits with her dad and they make a fur coat out of the pelts. All the 9-year old girls around her had real mink coats and just to try to fit in, she did what she had to do. When that got her sneers and side looks, up went her middle finger. What drove everyone really nuts is that this misfit couldn’t be ignored or dismissed on her skills. She could compete with anyone, a 1988 first-place finish in Moscow marking the start of her making her mark. In 1991 she won her first National (the US Championships) and put her name in the history books as the first woman to land a triple axel in competition. None of her peers would even try to do it. She made into the 1992 Olympics, placing 4th behind Nancy Kerrigan.

And then the “incident” in 1994 happens. I, Tonya depicts Nancy Kerrigan’s attack largely outside of Tonya’s input and control. More guilty by association than anything else (she ended up pleading guilty to hindering the investigation). What is clear, is that she was surrounded by blithering idiots.

This was a hell of a movie that is crafted remarkably well. It constantly moves in terms of story, drama, emotion, and direction. Margot Robbie is awesome, as is Allison Janney playing LaVona. I knew nothing about the details, I only remember seeing the footage of Kerrigan right after she was hurt and Harding showing the Olympic judges her broken skate laces in Norway. It’s up to you to decide if you think Tonya is an awful person (or a liar or both) after watching this. I think I, Tonya is a good example of someone being put through the wringer of a life they were born into. The journey is often marked with ugly and uncomfortable struggles.

The sixth movie in the Terminator franchise but chronologically the third, Dark Fate has a steep hill to climb. The last three movies ranged from alright to oof, what happened? I don’t think anyone remembers Rise of the Machines and while Genisys has its faults, it’s not bad. There’s no need to mention Salvation. That’s not a good batting average when the first two Terminator films are classics. Dark Fate is the third crack at reviving this 35 year old franchise.

So, how do you do it a third time? You ignore everything that was released in the last 17 years. It’s gotten too complex and sloppy. None of the last three movies happened, this is a direct sequel to T2: Judgement Day. And that movie is awesome. So, how do you make a good Terminator sequel? Keep everything that people liked about the first two movies and mix them together to add to the formula. This recipe worked on me, Dark Fate is an exciting ride.

Dark Fate is about humanity’s hubris. No matter what, we will create Artificial Intelligence that becomes self-aware and takes over to wipe us out. The other inevitability is mankind will always fight back. In T2, Sara and John Connor successfully stopped Judgement Day from occurring in August of 1997. But terminators are still sent back in time to kill John, and one ends up succeeding, leaving Sara alone in her fight until the present day. A new model of terminator–the REV-9–is sent to today after new target, Dani Ramos. The human rebellion from the future sends an augmented human soldier named Grace to defend Dani from the new threat. Grace finds Dani first and the two link up with Sara Connor to continue the fight against the machines across the decades.

Linda Hamilton rules. It’s awesome to see her play Sara again and this story fills in what has happened to her since the end of T2. The way they get her and a T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger as “Carl”!) to work together again is creative and brings back that uneasy partnership from T2. Grace as the new protector is a great addition as she’s not a cyborg, but a human that’s been heavily augmented to be able to stand up to a terminator. This removes the robot “learning” about being human from T2–which doesn’t need to be rehashed–and adds a compassionate, engaging, and relatable character right away. Plus, I love Mackenzie Davis from the show Halt and Catch Fire. She is a terrific badass heroine.

The REV-9 (“Gabriel” in human form played by Gabriel Luna) is a hybrid of the T-800 and the T-1000 terminator technology. A endoskeleton core with a liquid/nano skin that can separate and function away from the endoskeleton. This movie literally mixes the threats of the first two movies together to make a new, yet familiar, lethal threat.

Dani (Natalia Reyes) takes the role of John Connor. An innocent person thrust into the madness of being hunted for being the apparent savior of the human race. Reyes plays the part of the average person. Her struggle to come to grips with being hunted by a robot, and protected by two robots; the fear of being attacked all the time and forced to run at every moment is a visceral one. While she is the “replacement” of John, she handles it differently. She’s more confident and quicker to take part in controlling her fate.

For anyone that seen Terminator and T2, you can see the structure of both movies in what I’ve described. Characters are similar but expanded. The stakes are the same but the situation has been altered to make this third round happen. A lot of the intrigue in the story comes from finding out what Sara and John ended up accomplishing and what Sara has been doing since.

Placed between the lore and plot are awesome action scenes. There are some phenomenal special effects in this movie. And there is a lot of variety. A chase movie through and through, the settings are always changed to offer different battle scenarios and strategies to keep things interesting against a villian that is so hard to stop. While some backgrounds and other large CG elements (the airplane sequence comes to mind) can give you that weird CG plastic look that gives things away, much of it is incredible. Close up shots look believable, the effects of the REV- 9 are brilliant and make this new terminator look fierce and futuristic. The combination of the classic physical endoskeleton (now matte black!) and the liquid body opens the doors to wild fight scenes. There is a realistic sense of weight, power, impact, and scale when Grace, the REV-9 and Carl fight. Half the time they are partially or all CG, but it’s hard to tell.

Having a cast of five with different physical capabilities also adds variety and higher stakes. From the bottom, two are human, so they are very squishy. Dani has no self-defense training, so she has to be extra careful. Sara is a master marksman, with a gun and some range she’s dangerous. She can’t let a machine get close, she has no physical power. Grace is incredibly strong, a monster fighter, and can take a lot of damage. But she has limits that are way below a terminator. The REV-9 and T-800 “Carl” are juggernauts.

The physics are really well done which is a major accomplishment. When CG objects move around fast, go airborne, collide with things, it’s often easy to tell when the CG elements are swapped in. A film turns into a video game. That ruins the illusion and that doesn’t happen much in Dark Fate. Sure, the REV-9 does impossible things with its liquid half and gets thrown around with tremendous force, but it looks like it’s moving as it should. The digital face replacement for placing actor’s faces over stuntmen and women is cutting edge. I was constantly impressed by the action here, it totally carries the torch from Terminator 2 (and to be honest, the action in this entire franchise has always been great).

I liked everything about Dark Fate. The cast is fantastic, I like every character. Great dialog, believable reactions. Each new and remixed element is smartly placed and utilized. If the last three movies didn’t exist, I think this movie would have been way more anticipated and done much better in theatres. Like the X-Men franchise, too many felt burned by too many sub-par entries so they stayed away.

Speaking of X-Men, this is what Dark Phoenix wanted to be. A resurrection and quality culmination of characters that people love. Everything that Phoenix did wrong, Dark Fate did right. This also brings me to another movie I recently watched, Toy Story 4.

That movie feels like a definitive end for the franchise and Dark Fate does too. Those characters have told their story and at the very least, there is nothing more for Arnold to do with Terminator. He’s one of the best parts of this movie and that makes it a complete story for him. While they have room to use Linda Hamilton in a possible sequel (she was not in the last three so Sara hasn’t been overused) his time is done. No more CG Arnold T-800 reconstructions. In order to move the franchise forward, drastic things need to be done to do so. Remixing won’t work again and ultimately it’s probably for the best that Dark Fate is how this franchise goes out with a bang.