I liked It (2017) a lot. It was a ton of fun and super creepy in all the right ways. The adaptation did the book justice while making the necessary tweaks to make it a bit more modern and ditch the ultra awkward bits.

So coming into Chapter Two, I was looking forward to it. The movie focuses almost entirely on the Losers Club as adults, 27 years after their encounter with Pennywise. Mike is the only one of the seven kids to stay in their hometown of Derry and he keeps the Club’s pact when he discovers that Pennywise is killing again. Mike calls his olds friends to come back to stop the slaughter.

It, the novel, is massive. It’s a good 1,000 pages so splitting it up for a movie is the right thing to do. Breaking it apart as the kid timeline and the adult timeline is the easiest way of taming this twisted story. But watching this second half felt way too familiar, like it didn’t quite justify it’s existence. It’s just more of the same, just with an older and taller cast. It’s a really weird thought because hey, isn’t that what sequels are? You keep going with what was done before. Keep what was good, move away from what didn’t and add to the world.

I never got the sense that Chapter Two found its purpose. For a movie that exceeds two and a half hours, it’s way too simple. Not much happens. The first chunk is getting everyone back together, Mike telling the gang he knows how to kill Pennywise. That leads into the second act where each person gets their “totem” to break Pennywise’s power (I guess) so the monster can be killed. The third act is obviously going after Pennywise. And that’s it. You find out what each kid did with their lives, but you don’t get to know anyone any better. The dynamic was much more interesting in the first because it’s a group of kids, all in different family circumstances, coming together to first figure out what’s going on and sticking together to do something about it. There’s way more comradery in the first and each beat with Pennywise feels new and fresh.

Plus, everything with Henry Bowers feels like an afterthought, tacked on simply because he lived through the first movie (if I remember right, Pennywise gets him as a kid in the book). He’s added as another threat which the story doesn’t need and he’s in maybe all of five minutes, so why bother? If those scenes were cut out, no one would notice or miss him. If the goal was to give Eddie more motivation for the end, there are better ways of doing it.

The big problem is that Pennywise is too familiar here. As monsters go, he’s super goofy (which I do like but it needs to be carefully managed–let’s be real, you can only prance so much), he lives to scare and then eat someone. There’s a lot of jubilation in how he hunts, stirring up fear to make him more powerful. So while he looks menacing as ever in Chapter Two, the actions are all rather predictable. It feels like too much of the same. Much like prancing, there’s a limit to how many times you can run at someone before it turns into a bit. Maybe not enough people get munched? It is rather dull to hang this on a low body count, but it would give a better perspective on how truly dangerous this entity is. Despite grandiose special effects, the scale comes off as small. Through the whole movie, only the Losers Club knows Pennywise is doing anything. The undercurrent of a threat isn’t realized well enough.

And what is with the weird reactions from the few bystanders that are in the movie? When the Losers Club first meets at the restaurant, Pennywise lets them know he knows they’re back with some hallucinations. It turns into a full scale freak out with six adults screaming in terror and Mike smashing the table with his chair. The hostess comes over and nonchalantly asks them if everything is okay. It’s like she noticed one of them looking around for a waiter instead of the entire corner of the resturaunt rioting.

On the production side, this movie is a knock out. The cast is terrific and the visuals are nuts. The special effects are fantastic with some really creative and well realized nightmare-ish scenarios. The one thing I did come away from Chapter Two is please give director Andy Muschietti a Nightmare on Elm Street movie! That’s all I could think about from the moment Pennywise came back on screen. The powers they show Pennywise doing fit Freddy perfectly and show how badly handled he’s been in his last three movies*. Muschietti knows how set up scenes and shoot for heavy special effects work. With the right script, he could bring the Nightmare franchise back.

*Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is really good, I was just disappointed with the very few death nightmares. Freddy vs Jason, Freddy was robbed in the body count. Jason kills everyone, I think they only did two nightmare sequences. The NOES remake (2010) wasted almost every opportunity to be creative. You can do anything in a nightmare which separates the Nightmare franchise from the rest and it’s been ages since someone ran with it. Tina’s death scene has been done three times. /rant

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.

Rian Johnson needs to keep making his own original movies where he isn’t held down by someone else’s rules and expectations. He got swarmed by a legion of sourpusses for The Last Jedi and with Knives Out he gets to have a blast in his own world and gives us another terrific original story to watch.

Harlan Thrombey is a wildly successful mystery novel writer with a large family that has come to rely on him a lot over the years. At his untimely and rather gruesome death, it brings them all together to his home to go over the last will and testament where they are all met by an unexpected guest. Harlan’s death is seen as suicide and this brings the local police in to ask questions and they are accompanied by detective Benoit Blanc, an expert in sniffing out…murder.

I suspect foul play. I have eliminated no suspects.

Writer/Director Rian Johnson-one of my favorite working today-has crafted a really fun and engaging murder mystery with a stacked cast (check that IMDB page!) with more than a few surprises. The big narrative shock is that you find out who killed Harlan in the first act of the movie. The ponderous nature of the narrative that unfolds is that Benoit doesn’t know who hired him. He received an envelope of money with a note that Harlan was murdered and his expertise is needed to find out who did it. But with what’s publicly known about Harlan’s murder how does the mystery tipster know Harlan was murdered? Someone in the house has a lot of secrets. As Benoit digs in, the tapestry of murder, setups and goblin levels of greedy family members is woven before you.

Knives Out is an original, well told story that has tons of foreshadowing, excitement, intrigue, and suspense from start to finish. The entire cast looks like they had a blast, Daniel Craig as Benoit in particular. There’s a lot to notice on re-viewings so this movie is worth watching more than once. I only had one hang up on my viewing. Near the end of the film, there is narration to explain the actions of the Evil Doer that seemed to give the Evil Doer more information than they could have known at the time. I had to watch that part a few times to understand it and I think it’s just poorly worded (Mr. Johnson, I offer my editing and content reviewing services for any of your future projects).

Not enough murder mysteries like this are made for TV and film anymore and that’s a shame. When done well, they are incredibly engaging and memorable. Rian managed to also mix in some really funny lines. Witty and clever, these quick moments highlight character personalities in an efficient manner. There are around a dozen main characters so there is a lot to manage. Just about everyone gets their chance to shine. There isn’t a single wasted moment and even as you learn more about what happened, there is more for you to try and figure out on your own. While so much is seemingly given to you at the start, a lot is held back and at the end, it all comes together really well.

I think this stands up right next to the legendary Clue movie that came out way back in 1985. In fact, if you are a Clue fan, drop whatever you are doing and get your Knives Out right now.

On with the quick hits!

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbes and Shaw– I liked this way more than I thought I would. Dwayne Johnson can make just about anything work and the pairing of him and Jason Statham as Shaw is a potent mix. Statham has done a lot of action movies and his best role is Shaw. Giving him the foil of Hobbes makes his character work at his most surly and best. The set up to give them their own duo movie is easy: a biological weapon is on the loose, Hobbes is put on the case and Shaw’s sister is the rogue agent so Shaw is pulled into the save the world orbit. With Fast and Furious in the title, it checks all the boxes of the franchise. I liked the escalation of action, it works it’s way up to cartoon levels pretty late in the film. The movie also tries to be funny all the time and sometimes succeeds. Your mileage will vary in how much you laugh as Hobbes and Shaw’s bickering is always stupid and goofy. I don’t think I’m saying anything surprising in the 9th movie of a nearly twenty-year-old series. Silly fun, one of the better entries in the series.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix– This movie got absolutely trashed when it came out. I can honestly say, it’s not a bad movie. The problem is that it never gets any better than ‘good’ making it a movie that you can skip and not miss anything. The X-Men film franchise is a weird one. It has more misses than hits. A reboot of sorts started in 2011 with First Class while Wolverine got his own movies where only one of those was worth watching. Then 2014, Days of Future Past was a solid entry, everyone hated Apocalypse in 2016 and Dark Phoenix tries to do something worthwhile in the last entry of this cast before Disney/Marvel takes the rains.

The problem is, the story in this is far too simple and for as big as the cast is, there aren’t enough characters to care about. Many characters have very little to do–they are there for action scenes–they say very little and even have nothing to say (I don’t think Quicksilver speaks at all and then gets injured). So they feel like a waste. Mystique is a major character but she’s so different from her comic book self that it feels wrong. Jennifer Lawrence does everything she can with what she’s given but it’s hard to care about it. It doesn’t help that the previous movie wasn’t good so there’s a large gap of when anyone cared about her or any of these characters. Sophie Turner does her best work as Jean, she’s got the best scenes with James McAvoy as Professor X. Nicholas Holt is the other highlight as Hank but his scenes are too few and far between.

Everything whips by quickly and after two hours it doesn’t feel like anything with weight happens. At the beginning Jean gets–possessed is I guess the best word to use for it–and she starts to lose control of her now greatly amplified powers. It seems to be triggered by anger, which isn’t interesting. She runs off, a fight to bring her back happens, she finds out a secret about her past that Professor X has kept from her making her madder. It’s there that the best and more important conflict is and not enough is done with it. Her teammates, who have known her for years show basic concern for her, but no time is spent with them.

The worst is the alien antagonists that are boring and come across as a tacked-on afterthought. They show up out of nowhere and the absolute minimal amount of information about them and their motives are given in the entire story. So you don’t care about them. They became the fodder for the last action scene of the movie. And while that action scene is fantastic, the final showdown with Jean and head baddie is anti-climatic and dull. The end doesn’t land as well as it should so the movie and this franchise feels like it simply fades away, just in time for the credits to roll. Really disappointing.

Eli– Available on Netflix, this one turned out to be a lot of fun. Eli is a young boy with a severe auto-immune disease. He’s basically allergic to everything, he breaks out into a red rash and can’t breathe. If he goes outside, he has to wear a hazmat suit to keep himself safe. After years of living in a plastic bubble, his parents have found a doctor who specializes in his condition and they travel to her converted home for the cure. Along with the doctor and her two nurses, they are the only people in the sanitary facility…until Eli is visited by a dark presence on the first night. All the adults don’t believe what Eli is telling them and he has to piece together what’s going on by himself.

As you can see those are some classic horror setups. The build-up to the haunted house is quite good and there are some genuinely creepy and tense scenes with Eli being on his own at night. During the day isn’t much better has he is put through stressful procedures by the doctor. Night and day the kid is physically and emotionally tested. I really liked the reveal of what is going on, I was tricked twice before it all comes together. Well done direction and special effects make each moment stand out and believable. I especially love the end with a great payoff that sets up a very different sequel. I’m totally on board to see where this team of filmmakers would go with it. Gore and violence are kept to a minimum with the most intense visuals (that are really impressive) kept for the end. I think it’s tastefully done and fitting for a climax. Smart move as I think being more restrained makes this more approachable to a bigger audience.

Good Boys– Max, Lucas, and Thor are best friends starting the sixth grade. Peer pressure to be cool and grow up as fast as possible is in full effect. When Max manages to get all of them invited to the cool kid’s party (it’s kissing party!) it triggers the race to find out how to kiss a girl before the party. That snowballs into losing a drone, skipping school, getting mixed up with drugs and chased around town by angry high school girls.

This movie was way better than I thought it would be. It’s a fitting title, the kids are good boys and most of the laughs come from the innocence of eleven-year-olds confidently claiming they know everything. It’s a time when puberty starts for many, everything and everyone around you is changing and “leaving” childhood behind seems like the thing to do. The kids are great, it feels like they’ve known each other their whole lives and watching them curse through the whole crazy ordeal is a blast. The funny thing is that kids the age of the main characters aren’t the audience for this, there is cursing all over the place and sex jokes stuffed everywhere possible. It’s kind of like a tamer version of The Hangover. The line of going too far is skated up to but never crossed. There is a lot of cursing, but it’s not mean tirades or gross. There’s no violence. There’s just situational absurdity about friends going through a day they will never forget and they all learn about themselves at the end of it. A big and pleasant surprise, I recommend it.

Spiderman does what a spider can! Following the events of the universe-altering Endgame movie, Far From Home finds Peter Parker without Tony Stark to mentor him. With the weight of the world off his shoulders for a bit, Peter wants a break from wearing the spandex suit. Looking forward to a trip to you Europe with his classmates, he sees it as the perfect chance to take a vacation, be a kid, a tell MJ how he feels about her. But where ever a Spider goes, trouble seemingly follows.

Along with the amazing powers Peter has, Tony gives him another great responsibility: E.D.I.T.H. A networked supercomputer with a frightening amount of surveillance and weapons capability that’s accessed with voice commands via sunglasses that were built and obviously styled by Tony himself. While trying to juggle the everyday American teenager stuff, this is an overwhelming amount of pressure to put on a kid who is in the middle of identity and purpose-in-life crisis. Also, he really, really likes this girl and doesn’t know how to handle it.

Enter Quentin Beck aka Mysterio. He comes flying in like a new Tony Stark, blasting a large elemental monster with some kind of green energy from his hands. Sure he’s got what looks like a fishbowl on his head but his armor is really cool. Peter teams up with Mysterio to defend an attack on the first stop of his European trip. It goes well and Peter makes a new friend with a kindred spirit. Quentin is a good guy, a fellow hero who fights to help people. Peter quickly trusts him, thinking it’s what Tony would want and expect him to do. And that proves to be a big problem.

The coolest part of Spiderman is that his powers make him incredibly agile. He can move and this fight in ways no one else can, so that makes for some inventive and unique fight and action sequences. This movie is full of them and each one builds on the other. The visuals are all on point so there’s nothing really there that breaks the illusion of the insanity on screen.

The cast is all terrific, all the classmates return from Homecoming so there is an instant and fun familiarity to get back into. Jake Gyllenhall is perfectly cast as Mysterio, as is the modernization of his powers. Far From Home also stands well as a solo movie, you don’t have to have seen Homecoming and enough of the set up from what happened in Endgame is given to get newcomers up to speed.

There’s nothing for me to complain about here, the Tom Holland run of Spiderman continues to be a blast and a lot of universe progress is made with this movie. More, please!

Director Bong Joon Ho continues his ascension into the top tier of filmmakers with his latest called Parasite. Storywise, it’s a simple concept. The Kim family, living on the lower side of the economic scale, con their way into working for a wealthy family, the Parks. Soon after settling in with the Parks, something happens that threatens to ruin everything for the Kims.

This is an amazingly fun movie that is pulled off to perfection. The building blocks of the Kim’s scam are expertly placed. Each family member, starting with the son, has a believable way in and the introduction of the next family member into the fold is also smartly done. This kind of movie has been done before so it becomes a matter of what new direction can they do here to make it a story worth telling? The fun of Parasite is watching each step of the plan come together. Then, you wait on pins and needles to see what’s going to push over the first domino into a disaster. Finally, the anticipation on how it concludes. Can they stick the landing? The hook that sets off the tragedy of the story is just as well done as the setup, as is the ending. This script is so well thought out and executed that I was impressed with every scene–there’s a purpose to every single thing you are shown.

This is pretty much a tale of the have and the have nots. The Park’s seemingly have everything and the Kim’s are struggling to make ends meet week to week. Their semi-underground apartment (it’s a basement) only gives them a sliver of a view to the outside world. And practically everyday that view is ruined by a drunk man relieving himself next to their kitchen. The Park’s, on the other hand, have floor to ceiling windows in their gigantic home, and beautiful landscaping in a posh neighborhood. So when the son, Woo, starts weaseling his way into tutoring the Park’s daughter thanks to one of his friends, you understand this kid wanting to do anything to advance himself, which will help his family.

The beginning of the movie perfectly establishes the Kim family. The four of them are a tight-knit family and they’re easy to like. One of my favorite scenes is when Woo goes to meet Mrs. Park to interview for the tutoring gig. With a forged document in his hand thanks to the handiwork of his sister, Jung, he stops and smiles at his father. He proclaims that it isn’t a fake, he just printed it out a year early. He’s going to get this great paying job, save up, go to the school where the forgery says he’s been attending, and everything will get better for them. This is just what he has to do to start the rest of his life. So while what he’s doing is shady, you’re on his side. Now, while he gets his sister in pretty easily, it’s bringing in the Kim parents where things turn much more dishonest and morally awful.

And that’s the brilliant pivot of the movie. Things are going well for the Kim’s, they are working hard and for the first time in a while see a bright future for themselves. With four great incomes, they’re making real money. It’s only at this point where they briefly ponder what’s happened to the good people they got fired. The moral question is asked and shortly after, their con blows up in their face in an unexpected way (I didn’t see it coming at all). I won’t say anything more about the twist because I think you need to go into it blind for the most impact. I will say that the twist brings in an additional terrific layer of compassion and parallels to the plight of others in the world that makes you think. I think the ending is brilliant as well, giving an elegant answer while also leaving it open ended.

Every actor in this movie is fantastic and the production is often gorgeous. Bong Joon Ho is a phenomenal director. He frames things so well, knows exactly when and how to move a camera to focus attention, raise drama, and unconsciously push the viewer through the story the way he wants you to with seemingly no effort. Few directors can match his finesse.

Highly recommended, easily one of the best movies of 2019 and it deserves every Oscar it won.