What was the last movie you watched?

The Gift: I thought this was really good. The story is really intriguing and suspenseful. The actors did an amazing job, with Joel Edgerton writing, directing, and starring in the film, which is pretty damn cool. Without giving it away, the movie has a pretty ambiguous ending, which could annoy some people. I personally thought it worked well.

Fantastic 4: I don't know what the deal is with people completely trashing this movie, besides the fact that certain fans really want the F4 in the MCU and were determined to hate it on "principle" (although I feel like the MCU is busy/crowded enough as it is). It's not the best movie I've seen this year, but it's definitely not the least enjoyable, either. I loved the first half of the film. I thought it did a nice job of setting up the characters and the world. I thought the scenes of the characters getting their powers were shot really well- it really showed how damn scary that would be in real life. The second half of the movie wasn't as interesting to me. The bad guy motivation was boring. What else I didn't like: 1) I don't quite understand why Hollywood keeps sidelining the superhero ladies, but I was disappointed that Sue didn't get to be more awesome. 2) I also thought the movie just really fucked up Dr. Doom. I was totally down with his character in the first half of the movie, but once he put on the suit... no. For one thing, I think it usually looks cheesy when movies put the characters in their comic costumes- see Magneto's horrific get-up in X-Men: First Class for an example. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it just seems really weird and out of place. And the movie didn't even get the traditional costume down right- the CGI looked awful on it, and it just kind of didn't make sense. 3) Speaking of CGI, I thought it was hit and miss as far as quality- some of it looked great, but some of it was downright terrible. I don't know; there are probably other things I could mention. Bottom line- I wouldn't pay for a full price theater ticket to see this again, but I'd rent it if the mood came over me. I've seen way worse films.

 

Southpaw: I don't actually like sports, so I wasn't overly interested in the boxing aspect, but the family/grieving/getting back on your feet part of the story was right up my alley. Jake Gyllenhaal was pretty awesome in this movie. Very good acting on his part, and you could just tell that he took the role really seriously. There were a few scenes that didn't seem to fit very well, or were kind of random and in my opinion unnecessary. But the cinematography, music, etc, were all well done, and for the most part, I enjoyed watching this film.

 

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

I hate to be that guy, but this adaptation was so far removed from the book, it was an adaptation in name only. In that respect, it was a highly disappointing film, making very little sense and crapping all over the story established in the first film, and the upcoming story from the third book. Looking at it solely from a film perspective, I suppose it was all right. Generic dystopian young adult story, cliffhanger ending to set up the next sequel. v_v

 

I've seen a few movies here over the last little while, and I figure I may as well throw them all into this post here.

Most recent: The Martian. It was a complete accident that I saw this (I was running late and missed the movie I was supposed to see), but it was completely worth it because this movie was great. Matt Damon kills it, and he pretty much has to carry the film on his shoulders, since it's Cast Away in Space, basically. The supporting cast was great, also, and the story was really gripping. My only (tiny) complaint is that the movie is really long, and towards the end I was starting to feel it. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this movie.

Sicario: I kind of feel like this one is a bit overrated. I thought the acting was good, and the story was interesting, but the story is told from Emily Blunt's point of view, and she's clueless about everything, so I felt clueless while watching it, too. I just was never completely engrossed in what was going on. By no means did I think it was a horrible movie, but based on reviews I thought it would be a bit better.

Black Mass: Finally, a Johnny Depp role where he's not being a complete caricature or Jack Sparrow rip-off. I liked this movie a lot. Johnny Depp and Joel Edgerton were both fantastic in this movie (Joel Edgerton was a bit better, imo, but Depp will probably win the awards). The rest of the supporting cast were fine, though a bit interchangeable- I had trouble keeping some names straight. I thought the story was well done, though I pass no judgment on how true it may be. Still a good crime drama regardless.

 

Bump.

Seen a few movies since October. I know everyone is just dying for my opinion on them. So here it is. XD

Daddy's Home: This was pretty okay. I only like once or twice laughed out loud, but the movie was still mostly funny. Some of the humor didn't really work for me, but it was enjoyable all the same. The story was predictable and the ending was a little stupid, but I'm easily amused and liked it anyway. I don't have a whole lot else to say about it.

Joy: Speaking of things that don't work for me, I just don't understand the hype about Jennifer Lawrence. She's kind of robotic. Pretty much the only time I really enjoy her acting is in the Hunger Games series. Here, she did a respectable enough job, I suppose, but was rather miscast, given that she's only in her early twenties and the role she was playing fit someone in her early thirties. Ah, Hollywood, how you hate middle-aged and older women. This movie was vaguely interesting, but had a lot of unlikable characters, and I dunno, just seemed more like a made-for-tv movie than a theatrical release. I don't understand why it's getting any Oscar attention, either. JLaw was not good enough here for all that, in my opinion.

Hunger Games, Mockingjay Part II: I didn't like this book for the most part, so I didn't have high hopes of liking the movie version, either Part I and II, but the movie turned out pretty good. It did a nice job visualizing some of the things I had trouble visualizing while I read the book (some of the Capitol mutts and traps, for example), the acting was well done by most everyone, and it was a satisfyingly happy enough ending for our heroes. I think it did the best it could, given that the source material is 90% Katniss PTSDing and standing around catatonic.

Secret In Their Eyes: According to IMDB, this is a remake of an infinitely better foreign film. I dunno, I thought this version was pretty good. I really like Chiwetel Ejiofor after seeing him in The Martian, so I was glad to see him in this. I thought Julia Roberts was believable as a mom who suffered such a horrible loss. I ruined the plot for myself by looking up info about it online, so there wasn't a good twist for me, but I was still invested in what was happening. No doubt the original is probably better, but I did like this.

Goosebumps: How much did I love this movie? So much more than I was expecting to. Goosebumps (the books) was my childhood, and I loved seeing it on the big screen. I thought they did a very nice job including characters and aspects from various books into one cohesive story. Jack Black was awesome as R.L. Stine, despite having an odd sort of accent for no reason. The kids (I say kids despite the fact that they were probably adults and were playing teenagers) were all really good too, especially the kid who played the dork, Champ. I don't know, I thought he was great. It was just a really good time.

 

Bump again. Seriously, people, I know I'm a loser who spends most of her free time outside of home at the theater, but does no one else watch movies? Geez.

Anyhow, last one I watched was Room. It's not much of a happy story, so it's weird to say I "enjoyed" it, but I did think it was a good movie. Very well acted, by both leads, but especially by child actor Jacob Tremblay. This kid was robbed when he wasn't nominated for an Oscar. First half was more suspenseful, and therefore more interesting to me, but as a whole, I thought this was a well-made, interesting movie.

 

CREED

So I've never seen a Rocky movie, but from what I understand from watching this movie. I see a long line of sequels for this one. Seeing as Creed's box office numbers did better than some of its predecessors. It wasn't bad. Could've hit on more points they were trying to get across and I was hoping for a better montage. It ended just as I predicted though.

 

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice: Yeah, I don't know about this one. Ben Affleck did a decent job as Batman (although Michael Keaton will always be Batman to me), and most of the rest of the cast was decent to good (in particular, Gal Gadot made a beautiful and badass Wonder Woman, I enjoyed her a lot). The lone exception was Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. You could tell he was trying, but something went wrong along the way, because he was basically playing Jim Carrey's Riddler, and that is not how I see Lex Luthor at all. I don't know if this was a script writing fail, poor direction, or just an odd acting portrayal, but it didn't ring true to me. The effects for the most part, besides the CGI LotR troll at the end, were fairly good. The action scenes were pretty well choreographed- there was one scene of Batman kicking some ass and swinging himself around with his grappling hook or whatever that reminded me of some of the better Batman video games. The story, though. It's not that it was difficult to follow, exactly, the basic story of why Batman is pissed off at Superman, and so on, is easy enough to get. But there were a lot of subplots, and they didn't all have very satisfying or relevant conclusions, in my opinion. Like, pretty much everything involving Lois could have been cut, the story would have been the same, and we could have cut down on the long runtime. And they threw in some pretty cheesy Justice League cameos that I personally thought were lame. Just some all around odd choices.

Bottom line: I don't think it's godawful, but it probably could have been better.

 

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children: I read the book years ago and didn't like it much and don't really even remember it now, but the trailer looked pretty good, so I went and saw it. And the movie was pretty all right. I enjoyed it more than the book, but it wasn't blow-you-away awesome or anything. Had some interesting visuals, as Tim Burton usually does, and even used a little stop-motion, which I thought was nice and old-school. Some of the acting was good, some not-so-good. The time travel nature of the story pretty much makes no sense, but was interesting enough to keep me paying attention.

also saw

The Magnificent Seven (2016): I know that this is a remake of a remake, and people hate remakes anymore, but I never saw Seven Samurai or the 1960 movie, so I didn't really care about that and was able to enjoy this movie. I thought the main characters were really likable and well acted, the story was kind of generic but still engaging, and the movie had some pretty cool action. I'd watch it again (but I probably wouldn't pay full theater price to do so).

 

I'm not familiar with the older films, but it seems to be a similar plot. A Generic Western Bad Guy terrorizes a small town in order to get them to sell their land to him so he can mine the gold nearby. A woman whose husband is murdered by the bad guy seeks help from Denzel Washington's bounty hunter with a heart of gold type of character, who assembles a team of various other gunslingers with hearts of gold, who teach the town to defend themselves and participate in the final showdown against the Bad Guy. I liked the movie, but again, I've never seen the others, and also, as you may tell from my reviews, I'm pretty easily entertained. I wanted to see the movie because I like Chris Pratt and I also like stories about people teaming up to fight a common enemy against long odds, and I thought the trailer looked good. I don't know that the movie was quite as good as I was hoping it would be, so if you were already not thinking you would like it from seeing a trailer/clips or hearing about it, it might not be for you.

 

Bump.

The Girl on the Train: I enjoyed the hell out of this- it was a really interesting psychological thriller. Emily Blunt is fantastic as the unreliable, downtrodden, alcoholic girl of the title, and the rest of the cast is wonderful as well. Parts of the mystery were given away due to the movie's small cast (there are only basically three people who could have done it, and one line about half way through exonerates two of them before I think we were supposed to be suspicious of the other one), but there were other twists that I was not expecting. To me, it was the kind of movie where you don't leave to use the restroom no matter how much you've drank in the last hour. (Also, I read the book after seeing the movie, and recommend that too, for those who enjoy this sort of thing).

 

Bump

Logan: This movie was R-rated awesomeness. Claws through people's heads, limbs torn off awesomeness. It's pretty much everything the Wolverine movies should have been. Fantastic, touching performances from Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and Dafne Keen (the adorable little girl playing Laura Kinney). These three carry the movie. The movie has a definite end of an era feel to it. I very much recommend it.

 

I personally disliked The Wolverine a lot the one time I saw it, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a pile of garbage that I kind of like on account of its complete awfulness. Logan is so much better than both of those. I've always liked Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the character, but seeing him constantly in all of the other X-Men films got old. I think this movie really redeemed the character for me.

I'm hoping with the success of Deadpool and now Logan, we'll start seeing some more R-rated comic book movies. It just gives a totally different experience than what you get watching The Avengers, for instance.

I've also pretty recently seen The Lego Batman Movie. I enjoyed that a lot, too. Lots of good character development (Zack Snyder or whoever is responsible for the mess that is the DC Cinematic Universe should take notes) and a decent enough story. I took my ten year old nephew and three year old niece to see it. My nephew really liked it. My niece was antsy and said there weren't enough girls in it.