This will probably go down as the movie that was ignored in favor of Spectre being released 3 months later. Despite a lengthy media blitz, TMU didn’t find much of an audience (reportedly it didn’t make a profit in theatres), which is a shame because I liked. Odd to say that now considering I’m one of the people that didn’t show up when it came out.

Leading actors Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer are secret agents, Napoleon Solo (with the CIA) and Illya Kuryakin (with the KGB) in the early 1960’s. The movie opens with a fun chase scene in Berlin with Illya trying to stop Solo. Events unfold and they are both assigned the mission of getting Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander, Ava from Ex Machina!) to her scientist father. He’s made some poor decisions recently. Having made some major breakthroughs in the explosive arts, he’s gotten himself involved with a nasty criminal organization that is using him to get into the nuclear arms race in a major way.

Guy Ritchie directed this picture and his fingerprints are all over it right from the opening credits. The man loves swooping camera movement.  Speed it up, slow it down, fly over here, fly back over there. Kinetic montages with funky beats (the soundtrack is awesome). It’s a rambunctious movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously (think Kingsman: The Secret Service). Cavill and Hammer work together great and look like they had a blast making the movie. Production values are great, the costumes being a real standout (it looks a lot like an old James Bond movie which I’m a sucker for).

As much as I liked it, there’s some off-putting stuff. The number of times Solo and Illya’s rivalry is addressed borders on the absurd. We get it, they’re both alpha males. The movie wants to be funny but often isn’t (acting nonchalant to horror movie like deaths is bizarre), so the humor often comes off as tone deaf and forced (Dialog. Like. This. Is. Not. Smart.). There are 3 endings too, so I went “oh, there’s more?” twice (each part works toward closure, but it makes the movie run a bit too long).

The end sets it up to be a franchise and I think it could have worked. Unfortunately, not enough people thought so. Worth a watch.

Run All Night

I don’t remember why I put this one in my list, but was pleasantly surpised in the end.  It’s got a cast I like a lot (Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman) and involves hitmen and the mob. When the son of ex-hitman Jimmy Conlon and the son of mob boss Shawn Maguire cross paths on the wrong night, a brutal night of revenge based on loyalty is played out. Liam Neeson continues his roles as a bad ass dude as Jimmy and Joel Kinnaman is perfectly cast as his son, Mike.  Not the most original of plots, but I liked it a lot. Well written and acted, I can’t remember any groan worthy lines. The movie looks and sounds great. Some eye catching directing (super clear and well thought out action, clever transitions) really got me into it. Varied and fun action scenes run the gauntlet of gun fights, car chases and close quarters fighting. A bathroom brawl and a burning apartment battle being my favorites. Jimmy chasing the cop car with Mike in the back seat through Manhattan is no slouch either. Junkie XL did the soundtrack and along with his work in Mad Max: Fury Road, I’m becoming a big fan of his cinema work. I don’t think many people saw this when it came out almost a year ago, making it a sleeper. Easily the best movie of this list, check it out for a surprise treat.

Police Story: Lockdown

Police Story has the pedigree of insane action and stunt work that is synonymous with Jackie Chan. While Lockdown is good, it just doesn’t match up to it’s predecessors. It’s light on the action and stunts and goes for a more complex story (with some not so right English translation). Zhong Wen is led into a club where a man takes everyone hostage and demands to see a man imprisoned for a murder years earlier. Wen swings into action, putting the pieces together and working to make sure all the hostages get out alive.  The plot does it’s best to move along, reveal itself one piece at a time while sprinkling in action pieces here and there (some in flashbacks). The movie takes place in mostly just the club which limits the scope. Action scenes felt restrained and too short most of the time, with the exception of one good “JC gauntlet chase scene” and mano-a-mano fight for good measure. I think I would have liked this more had it not been called a Police Story movie.

Jupiter Ascending

The latest Wachowski sci-fi movie to get pooped on by most. After watching it, I came away feeling apathetic more than anything. Not much to enjoy really. An alright story with visual effects that range from very good (neat fighter ships based on birds) to not so hot (fake backgrounds looking fake). Mila Kunis as Jupiter is boring and uninteresting and Channing Tatum as her Vanilla Ice hero from another planet doesn’t fair much better. While his anti-gravity boots may sound cool on paper, they look rather silly on screen. And then there is the villain Balem, who either whispers like a shy teen or screams his dialog like an angry toddler. He comes off as eye-rolling goofy and that’s not a good thing for an antagonist. Skip this and check out The Expanse on SyFy.

Survivor

It’s been some time since I’ve seen Milla Jovovich in a movie outside of the Resident Evil franchise. She plays Kate Abbott, a hotshot State Department agent relocated from DC to the American Embassy in London. She takes up the gig of issuing traveling visas right as a nefarious terrorist plan for New York City is in its final stages. Some suspicious activity that is dismissed by her new boss makes her start to investigate further which puts her on the hit list of “The Watchmaker” (Pierce Brosnan). Survivor is a middle of the road movie. It does nothing new or that great, but doesn’t do anything I’d call offensively bad. The word mundane comes to mind. It’s a predictable script held together by good acting and adequate action scenes (there are a lot of chase scenes). There are some suspect moments about the technology in use that take off points for believability. Remember the movie The Net? It’s a lot like that. Can’t say I recommend Survivor (not the best title either), but it could serve you well when sifting through the Netflix catalog on a rainy (or snowed in) day off.

Season 4 starts airing in February and they put up all of season 3 right here. Great stuff.

Anyone who has watched Making a Murderer on Netflix should be keenly aware of the bias the presentation is in Steven Avery’s favor. There has to be information that the filmmakers left out and it looks like some has been found.

Evidence Making a Murderer Didn’t Present

I’m late to the party on this one and since there are a few billion articles about The Force Awakens already, it feels rather redundant to write about it. I’m going to anyway because the space adventure is back.

I’m going to be flinging spoilers around since it’s been out for 3 weeks, so this is your warning.

The new cast members are great. In particular, Rey and Finn have great chemistry together and I’m totally looking forward to watching these two kids grow together. Poe is another one (Oscar Isaac had a hell of a year and it looks like there is no stopping him now) who eats up the screen and is a blast to root for. He comes off as a total hero pilot, all of his action scenes are wonderful. The new droid BB-8 often steals the scenes he’s in and pushes the likes of C3PO farther into the background. Seeing the old guard, Leia, Han, Chewbacca and Luke hit all the right nostalgia notes. Harrison Ford, in particular, was in fine form and a real treat.

On the Dark side of the character spectrum, Kylo Ren is the focal point. He’s a  more complex character than most people give him credit for. Many expected a new Darth Vader and he doesn’t hit that bar. Which is part of why I think he works so well. He’s clearly dangerous and powerful (stopping Poe’s blaster shot is a brilliant idea and it looks amazing). He lives in the shadow of his grandfather and father, both legends on opposite sides of the Force. The presence he’s built around himself is incredibly effective to those around him. The voice changer, the mask and his demeanour on missions channel Vader. His light saber is a brilliant touch too. It crackles and seethes in his hands unlike any other blade seen in the series. Whether he’s doing it with his Dark Force powers or he’s modified the hilt is unknown, but it’s incredibly intimidating and matches his intents perfectly. He scares most of the people around him half to death, but he’s actually a child at war with himself. He lacks control and as such is his own worst enemy.  I don’t think the writers get enough into his background which made some for some odd third act moments (which I’ll get to). His ultimate Darkside decision was major and important.

The other major villains don’t get nearly as much time and suffer for it. I like General Hux, he’s got his moments and I hope we see much more of him. Captain Phasma is a complete waste. I think she is in three scenes and folds like a cheap suit when it matters most. Really disappointing on all levels. I hope she has a purpose in Episode 8 and doesn’t come across like a clown again.

There are a ton of great scenes outside of the action. Han Solo and Chewbacca’s entrance made me smile. Rey bonding with Han and later figuring out Kylo in the interrogation scene was great. I liked the Han and Kylo talk a lot and just about everything BB-8 does is cute or funny.

Visually, I think TFA stands underneath (possibly right next to) only Mad Max: Fury Road (of the 2015 movies I’ve seen). Just eye popping stuff. ILM firing on all cylinders for those space battles. There’s an amazing shot that looks like you are hanging onto the side of a X-Wing in a dogfight that looks and sounds so real I thought I was there. This movie is a showcase of how powerful the best CG and practical effects can come together to make the impossible (and unknown) real. Love all the carefully thought out sets and aliens. Really sells the world, like we’re actually watching something happening in a real place. The return to s brawling type of lightsaber fight is really welcome. Much more viseral and intense. The ultra choreography of the prequels is too much.

Now for my quibbles. They kept Maz Kanata and Supreme Leader Snoke’s designs a secret for reasons I don’t understand. I like Maz a lot though. Cool character and design. She came out really well and I hope we see more of her (98% possibility on that). Snoke, on the other hand, is a mess. Terrible presentation. They said they wanted to design a character that couldn’t be done with make-up and he’s not impressive at all. He’s shown as a massive hologram and he looks so fake it’s jarring. So much effort was put into making things believable, that it’s amazing what is shown is final. I have a feeling they couldn’t settle on a design and a committee agreed on this boring shriveled headed thing. Nothing about him is that drastic looking and considering no background is given on him, he comes off as a paper thin image. A shame because he’s a major character. They needed to get in touch with Guillermo del Toro’s creature team to do the design and get Doug Jones to bring Snoke to life on set. That effort would have knocked the socks off of everyone.

We’ve had enough Death Stars.

Too predictable a story.

Too many convenient things happen in favor for the Rebellion, it takes away most of the conflict.

No memorial scene was a strange and huge omission.

More Berzerker Chewie, I thought his rage was cut too short.

Luke and Rey scene needed a bit of dialog.

Don’t know anything about the First Order. Tons of questions about the set up of this movie.

Didn’t like the use of R2D2 as a deus ex machina device! He’s in low power mode since Luke disappeared and conveniently turns himself on right when they need him to get to the end of the movie? Really lazy writing. Finding Luke is a major motivation for the Resistance and this tucks into a major head scratcher…

Why is Luke so needed when untrained Rey handles Kylo so easily? Rey quickly taps into the Force and figures out how to use them effectively on her own. We know that she can defend herself with a staff. Kylo shows off some serious Force powers up to that point. This is where the blind spots in his background mar things and produces too many questions.  We don’t know how long he trained under Luke, but we have to figure he has quite a bit of advanced training and she fends him off pretty easily.

Kylo’s injury from Chewie isn’t sold well enough (as well as the hit Finn gets on him). As it’s shown, Rey comes off as way too powerful and him too weak when she cuts him down (especially with his temper tantrums still fresh in the mind). His saber skills should have been shown to be blatantly better than hers. His skill fends off the power she’s managed to muster (as impressive as it is). Better sell her visually struggling and him defending her wild blows (she does get knocked back a few times and comes back at him at least. Maybe the trees obscured the fight too much? It might be better on a second viewing.)

My easy fix: That scene needed to end in a standoff. Keep the chasm that rips open, but do it sooner so that it ends the fight with both still standing. Kylo doesn’t make the huge jump because too much has been taken from him. She’s all up in his head with calling him out earlier, attacking her has proven to be much more difficult than he thought it would be. She doesn’t jump over because she physically can’t. The size of the gap requires a Force jump and she hasn’t tapped into the Force that well. She needs training (hi Luke!). Kylo decides Rey isn’t worth wasting any more time with the planet about to explode and says something nasty to her before walking away. He leaves her behind with Finn’s broken body. I think this leaves both characters on a more believable level at the end. They both go through training in the next movie which makes the anticipation for their next meeting much greater.

While not perfect, The Force Awakens does way more right than it does wrong. It’s a return to form that I think most people simply appreciate. While the movie plays it safe by going down the “Stuff fans like about Star Wars” checklist,  it kinda needed to. Episode 7 is a launching point and I think (hope) that they are going to take advantage of it. Learn from the missteps and make Episode 8 a better and much more ambitious movie.