ARGYLLE Review

I could watch two Channing Tatum movies in The Vow and The Lost City and get this same movie while having a more rewarding viewing experience and I would absolutely rather watch two consecutive Channing Tatum movies than ever experience Argylle again. 

That is to say, unfortunately Matthew Vaughn has officially become a director of diminishing returns. Out of the gate, Vaughn only continued to improve with each of his first five features. In his first (seemingly) original film since 2014 after making three films in the same universe and launching a third franchise with Argylle clearly intended to be a fourth (even though that definitely won't happen), it would seem Vaughn has finally hit a career low. While this would seem to indicate he can only go up from here, this winking hodgepodge of a meta-comedy, action caper lets us know early on what we're in for when it becomes clear just how little Vaughn is invested in the construction of the film by the placement of the title card. Why would you not at least save it until after the worst looking high speed car chase in history? 

Written by Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman) and including such classic dialogue as, “You and I, we’re not so different…” it is important to stay aware of the film's intent as Argylle unravels (pun fully intended). The point being, there is no intention or ideas outside of being "big" entertainment. Not even pure entertainment because if that were the case this would have been half an hour shorter, but in keeping with the "big" part of being entertaining this is nearly two and a half hours and absolutely doesn't need to be. Had they streamlined some of this overly convoluted nonsense it might have actually resonated simply as entertaining and fun, but it instead becomes a laughable (as in definitely laughing at and now with) slog. Even worse, a lot of the admittedly inventive action set pieces would be really clever and genuinely funny if they didn’t look like complete shit. I just can't understand how Vaughn's modern action sequences are so much uglier than the outright classics he was concocting ten and fifteen years ago?

THE MARVELS Review

It’s been at least three years since Nia DaCosta (Little Woods, Candyman) was announced as the director of The Marvels and as a writer/director that means she has been thinking about this story for at least that long as well. I say this 1) because I doubt what is portrayed on screen here is all she had in mind (more on that later) and 2) because it’s important to remember the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into which films are released is not often the same context in which they were written or shot. DaCosta came on in the immediate aftermath of Endgame - prior to the release of either WandaVision or Ms. Marvel and most importantly - prior to COVID, likely eager to continue the story of this newly minted Avenger and the prospect of the first ever MCU lady league. Taking that into consideration, The Marvels obviously arrives at a very different point in the MCU trajectory than DaCosta likely expected as steam has been lost and arguably a fair amount of quality as well. I hate to be a doomsdayer, but the one-two punch of COVID’s impact on the release schedule and the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman threw a wrench into the MCU’s plans and as a result the whole operation into recovery mode in more ways than one. Prior to Endgame, The Marvels would have nestled snuggly between Homecoming and Ant-Man in terms of quality and stakes and no one would have batted an eye as it is both a smaller scale team-up movie and a fun comic caper, but when the fate of the MCU is riding on something more equivalent to Ant-Man and the Wasp than Civil War, folks will both be disappointed and continue to declare the end of this once bulletproof franchise.

SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME Review

Jon Watts' second Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, has a lot of things going on, but just as Thanos preached in Avengers: Infinity War, what keeps everything intact and moving at a sustainable pace in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a post-Mad Titan world is, somewhat ironically I guess, the fact Watts and the screenwriters are able to keep everything "perfectly balanced". What is most interesting in slating the sequel to Watts' 2017 film as the immediate successor to Avengers: Endgame though, is that it immediately signaled the type of tone Marvel Studios and "showrunner" Kevin Feige would be addressing the fallout of the monumental events that any average viewer of the MCU knew were coming. The fact remaining that while Endgame concludes on something of an uplifting note for Steve Rogers the ramifications for many other characters were nowhere near as...complete. There were countless questions that required the attention of the creators behind the curtain: what is the state of organized religion in a post-snap world? How did those who'd gotten re-married in the five years since the snap and weren't polygamists deal with the fact their husband and/or wife just showed back up one day? If kids not snapped away aged five years and presumably continued their schooling, why would they still be in the same grade as their counterparts that did "blip" away? As Betty Brant (Angourie Rice) puts it at the beginning of Far From Home, "it's been a long, dramatic, somewhat confusing road," and while the subject of our review today might be intended to bridge the gap and help audiences, "move on...to a new phase in our lives," the fact remains that this "bridging of the gap" could have been handled in a multitude of ways, but for one reason or another Feige and co. decided to place this responsibility on the back of their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and thus the question remains the same: why? Why is Tom Holland's sixteen year-old Peter Parker, the youngest avenger, the one to bear this responsibility? It all comes back to that aspect of tone and knowing what consequences to take seriously and place weight in while knowing which to laugh off; Watts' high school comedies dressed up as super hero flicks make an ideal vehicle to blend the heart and the humor and it doesn't hurt that the film becomes a pretty good "Spider-Man" movie along the way as well.

Official Trailer for SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

It's been quite the last couple of weeks for Marvel Studios with Avengers: Endgame opening to shatter every kind of box office record imaginable and becoming a cultural phenomenon in the process only to now, two weekends into that film's release, deliver a new, full trailer for what was previously thought to be a nice little palette cleanser after Endgame, but looks to be much more than originally anticipated: Spider-Man: Far From Home. Far From Home was carrying this facade of being only what Ant-Man and the Wasp was last summer post-Infinity War, meaning it was more a stand-alone adventure than anything that necessarily integrated the character into the bigger world, but given this spoilerific Endgame trailer Sony just spilled all over Marvel, it looks like Tom Holland's Peter Parker is about to step-up to become the next Tony Stark. Not only this though, but the fact the trailer explicitly states there will still be repercussions from "the decimation" and that all wasn't tied up with a pretty bow given the events of Endgame thus giving birth to the idea of a "multiverse" is truly insane and opens up all kinds of possibilities about what could happen in the future and how the MCU will be changing as it moves into this new era. Given the events of Endgame and the fact we haven't known until this trailer whether or not Far From Home would take place after or before the events of Infinity War, this is all a pretty big shock to the system. It was always going to be a tricky task to market a film featuring a character that supposedly "died" three movies prior, but we are now living in a post-Endgame world where the rules have changed, but more importantly-the characters are changing with it and while we knew Samuel L. Jackson would be back as Nick Fury it's good to see him still thriving and with just as much gusto as he had when he showed up in the post-credits of that first Iron Man movie eleven years ago. Jon Watts returns to direct this sequel that will see Peter Parker and his friends, including Zendaya's MJ and Jacob Batalon's Ned, going on a summer vacation to Europe where Peter and co. find themselves in a plot with Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio. Spider-Man: Far From Home also stars Cobie Smulders, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Michael Keaton, Angourie Rice, Martin Starr, Tony Revolori, J.B. Smoove, and opens on July 2nd, 2019.

CAPTAIN MARVEL Review

Captain Marvel, notable for being the first female-led Marvel Cinematic Universe film after twenty-one movies, is a fun and sometimes unique take on the super hero origin story that unfortunately never finds its groove enough to the point it's somewhat fearful the character won’t be able to get her groove back when it comes time for Avengers: Endgame. For all intents and purposes, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s (Half Nelson, Mississippi Grind) MCU debut is your boilerplate Marvel origins story which, by virtue of where we’re now at in this universe, makes it feel small in comparison to even the most recent additions. Falling somewhere in between the muddled middle of Doctor Strange and Black Panther, Brie Larson's Carol Danvers isn't a riff on an origin story we've seen before, but neither does it have the added elements of magic as in Strange or the advantage of introducing us to a new world a la Panther. In a Phase Three world, a mostly Earth-set origin story was going to have to give us a little something more than also doubling as the origin story for Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury or-at least-it was going to need to find a really cool, really fresh way to convey that story. For example, in the opening twenty or so minutes of Captain Marvel, we are treated to what is essentially a Star Wars or Star Trek-like space opera with the full-on introductions of the Kree and Skrull races we've heard whisperings of for years as well as to the Kree home planet and their military force for which Danvers has been trained by her mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). Such introductions lend the film something of a Guardians of the Galaxy-vibe, but the tone is different enough that this could simply be yet another facet of the MCU we haven't yet seen. Were Boden and Fleck, who also wrote the script alongside Geneva Robertson-Dworet (2018's Tomb Raider), to harness the momentum of this initial set-up and action sequence, executing it in the fashion of a genre flick of this type that was released in the decade their film is set, the film might have proven to be a more unique and odd side venture for the MCU, but unlike the flavor Taika Waititi brought to Thor: Ragnarok or the subversiveness James Gunn infused his GotG films with, Captain Marvel ends up being a perfectly serviceable, but highly average entry in the ever-expanding MCU; a movie that feels more like the pilot of a nineties spin-off series that never hits the same strides as the series that inspired it rather than the explosive debut it could seemingly have so easily been.

First Trailer for SHAFT Starring Samuel L. Jackson

In the summer of 2000 I was thirteen and too young to see Samuel L. Jackson kick ass in Shaft or to know what Shaft was, for that matter. And so, never did I catch up with this billed-as-a-remake, but really more of a generequel (maybe the first of its kind?) as Jackson's John Shaft character was the nephew of the earlier film's Shaft. In never going back to catch-up with that film I also never caught with any of the three previous Shaft titles starring Richard Roundtree that were released in 1971, 1972, and 1973 with a television series picking up that same year and producing seven 90-minute movies through 1974 with Roundtree reprising his role in each. In 2000, Jackson was as hot as ever though. Leading up to Shaft Jackson was double-billed with Tommy Lee Jones in William Friedkin's Rules of Engagement and followed it up with (somewhat ironically) M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable; because I'm sure the guy thought nineteen years ago that two of his films that year would produce sequels, but that both would take nearly two decades to come to fruition. Speaking of Jackson, as Glass presently sits atop the box office for its third consecutive weekend the man will also appear in next month's Captain Marvel as a younger version of Nick Fury, there's no telling how much Fury might show up in Avengers: Endgame, and if the first trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home is any indication it looks as if Jackson's Fury will be playing a fairly pivotal role in that MCU film as well. So, three Marvel movies, two sequels including Shaft to nineteen-year-old properties, and potentially two other major releases this year (The Last Full Measure and The Banker) put Jackson as not only the busiest actors in Hollywood, but considering the likely box office for each of his franchise films here, also one of the most profitable. As for the trailer itself, it looks like a mixed bag of fine enough action and some solid comedy bits-most of which will come from Jesse T. Usher's not-as-inherently-badass long lost son of Jackson’s character. Tim Story (Think Like A Man, Barbershop) directs from a script by Kenya Baris (Black-ish) and Alex Barnow (The Goldbergs). Shaft also stars Regina Hall, Alexandra Shipp, Matt Lauria, Titus Welliver, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, and opens on June 14th, 2019.

GLASS Review

Nineteen years after writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's sophomore effort, Unbreakable, and two years after he confirmed his return to form with Split, the unique auteur has concocted what is the third film in an unlikely, but not so unlikely trilogy given the twist in Unbreakable was that all-along viewers were watching the origin story of a new hero and his arch nemesis yet were unaware of it. Like Unbreakable, Split was marketed under the guise of a different genre than what its true intentions held and when that original, James Newton Howard score re-emerged in those final moments of Split almost two years ago to the weekend it was one of the greatest "twists" I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a theater. This inadvertently created an issue for Shyamalan though, as with this trilogy-capper, Glass, there is no disguising what genre this film belongs to: this is a super hero movie through and through. And so, for a director who has made a name and a career off of the misdirect and/or "twist ending" the challenge in penning his first, unabashed sequel would be that of how might he might continue building these characters organically while integrating them into one another's respective worlds as well as framing the continuation of their story through a device that would satisfy the intrigue and sustain the investment. The idea that James McAvoy's "Beast" or Kevin Wendall Crumb as we know he truly exists is in the same world as Bruce Willis' David Dunn and Samuel L. Jackson's Elijah Price made for some exciting prospects, but where would Shyamalan actually go with things? How would these three individuals find their way across one another's paths and even if they happened to meet-what might it ultimately amount to? These are big questions that require much ambition and follow-through and while Shyamalan has been saying since Unbreakable opened in 2000 that he's had ideas or plans for a follow-up the time has finally come to put up or shut-up and for the most part, it's a good thing Shyamalan doesn't shut-up. With Glass, the filmmaker certainly has much to communicate and much he wants to say, but one will be hard pressed to figure out how all of these (broken) pieces are meant to fit together.

Teaser Trailer for SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

It's been quite the a month or so for Marvel Studios-kicking things off with what feels like the ramp-up for their first film of 2019 with the much anticipated, first female-led Captain Marvel and of course following that up with the glorious teaser that finally revealed the title and our first real look at what we now know is Avengers: Endgame. And now, today brings us the first look at what will be Marvel's (in association with Sony, of course) third film of 2019 in the official sequel to 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home. Far From Home only just wrapped shooting in October, but while filmmakers and digital effects artists are now able to work almost simultaneously with one another, building sequences that require large amounts of CGI as dailies are being sent to them from set, this did leave one curious as to just how much has been accomplished in the three months of post-production as rumors began to swirl as early as the same week the Endgame trailer dropped that we'd be getting a Far From Home trailer. Sony no doubt wanted to give their animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie time to breathe before reminding people there would be another movie featuring the web-slinger hitting theaters in less than a year and good on them for it as Spider-Verse certainly deserves all the acclaim and accolades it is receiving, but no lie-this looks great and the effects look better than expected meaning we get more money shots here than I thought we might. Given the events of Infinity War and the fact we don't yet know what happens in Endgame it was always going to be a tricky task to market a film featuring a character that supposedly "died" in that movie, but this teaser makes no reference to that seminal work in regards to superhero films, but instead goes one further and confirms Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is also back from being dusted. Jon Watts returns to direct this sequel that will see Peter Parker and his friends, including Zendaya's MJ and Jacob Batalon's Ned, going on a summer vacation to Europe where Peter and co. find themselves in a plot with Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio. Spider-Man: Far From Home also stars Cobie Smulders, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Michael Keaton, Angourie Rice, Martin Starr, Tony Revolori, J.B. Smoove, and opens on July 5th, 2019.

First Trailer for Marvel Studios' CAPTAIN MARVEL Starring Brie Larson

Marvel Studios has released the first look at Captain Marvel, the first female-led flick in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There have been about eight different characters known as Captain Marvel over the years, but the movie will follow the Carol Danvers storyline who first appeared in the comics in 1968. In the comics, Danvers was an Air Force pilot and CIA agent recruited by NASA and more specifically, by Dr. Philip Lawson, with whom she struck up a romantic relationship before learning of his true identity of Mahr Vehl from the alien race known as the Kree or the race of blue aliens we first saw in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy. Mahr Vehl blocks an explosion causing his genetic template to meld with Danvers' DNA turning her into Ms. Marvel. It wouldn't be until July of 2012 though that Danvers would take on the mantle of Captain Marvel after Mahr Vehl dies (spoiler alert!). Described as the most powerful super in the MCU (maybe even more so than Thanos) Captain Marvel has super strength, tons of military training, absorbs energy and returns the blasts from her fists as well as being able to fly six times faster than the speed of sound. This is all without mentioning the fact she apparently has a seventh sense that allows her to subconsciously anticipate the moves of her opponents and to connect with the cosmos. This cavalcade of powers will no doubt come in hand as the character's first film will be set in the nineties and deal with the ongoing galactic war between the Kree and the Skrull-a race of extraterrestrial shapeshifters. In the film, Brie Larson (Room, Kong: Skull Island) plays the titular character while Jude Law will appear as Lawson. Samuel L. Jackson will return as a younger Nicky Fury and Clark Gregg will be back as Agent Coulson. Lee Pace and Djimon Hounsou will also reprise their Guardians of the Galaxy roles as they are Kree warriors. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, It's Kind of a Funny Story, Mississippi Grind) were tapped to write and direct and while the screenplay is credited to both Boden, Fleck, and a host of other writers including Liz Flahive (GLOW), Meg LeFauve (Inside Out), Carly Mensch (Weeds, Nurse Jackie), Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy), and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (2018's Tomb Raider). And while this will largely be our introduction to Danvers if not your typical origin story it still has the responsibility of clearing up where Captain Marvel has been this entire time and how the character will play into Avengers 4. Needless to say, Boden and Fleck have their work cut out for them, but if the MCU train and this trailer are any indication, it doesn't seem the MCU will be getting off track anytime soon. Captain Marvel also stars Gemma Chan, Ben Mendelsohn, McKenna Grace, Annette Bening, Pete Ploszek, and opens on March 8th, 2019.

First Trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's GLASS

The first trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable/Split crossover, titled Glass, has hit the web and man is it a doozy. As a huge fan of Unbreakable and someone who more admired what the writer/director was doing in Split if not necessarily feeling like he fully capitalized on the premise or James McAvoy's terrific lead performance. Either way, what Shyamalan did with that last minute twist ending was fantastic and completely unexpected.Given this trailer, it looks as if Glass will not only expand on McAvoy's Kevin, but bring us up to date on what Bruce Willis' David Dunn and Samuel L. Jackson's Elijah Price have been up to in the nearly twenty years since that fateful train crash. The trailer begins by highlighting Sarah Paulson's new character, Dr. Ellie Staple, who states she is working in the ever-growing field of those real-life humans who actually believe that have supernatural abilities. It's certainly worth wondering if Shyamalan will incorporate the rising popularity of super heroes and comic book-based movies into the reasoning for Staple's consistently growing field. Whatever the case may be, it seems that there have certainly been some lines drawn as to those who think these people might actually have been blessed with powers and those who believe it to be based in psychological issues and tricks of the brain. Naturally, Jackson's titular character believes in the former and it seems his ever conspicuous Price AKA Mr. Glass will have a strong hand in driving the narrative dynamic between Kevin and Dunn's hero and villain. Furthermore, it will be interesting to see how Shyamalan balances the two different tones of the two different films that each birthed these characters. Unbreakable being more of an ominous drama whereas Split was sold completely as a horror flick. Needless to say, it's hard not to be excited for what this crossover holds as McAvoy especially seems to have taken the opportunity and run with it, Willis looks like he's actually invested in working again, and you know Jackson loves the idea he gets to be the mastermind behind all of this. Glass also sees the return of Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as starring Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard, Rob Yang, Luke Kirby, and opens on January 18, 2019.

INCREDIBLES 2 Review

It has been fourteen years since the Parr family, including Bob (Craig T. Nelson), Helen (Holly Hunter), and their three children-Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash (Huck Milner), and Jack Jack (Eli Fucile)-were introduced to audiences through the magic of Pixar and the imagination of writer/director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and arguably the best Mission: Impossible movie-Ghost Protocol). In those fourteen years since the first Incredibles film Pixar has steadily upped its output of sequels going from only a single sequel in Toy Story 2 as of 2004 to Incredibles 2 being the seventh Pixar sequel of some sort. Does this say anything about the studio outside of the fact they enjoy making money and are not immune to capitalizing on IP's the same way every other studio does? No, not really, but it does always feel like something of a missed opportunity when Pixar releases something that re-hashes a striking original rather than releasing what is hopefully another striking original. This is all to say that while The Incredibles always seemed like the most obvious choice for sequels, it was also a stand-alone film that didn't necessarily require any type of continuation. Thus bringing us to what is probably the most impressive thing about Bird's Incredibles 2 in that not only does the film seem to effortlessly pick up right where the original left off, but it validates itself thoroughly and makes its case that not only is its existence justified, but rather that the original needed this extension of the story to exist. And while this is impressive for obvious reasons it is the ideas the film dolls out as well as the engaging if rather complex without actually feeling convoluted premise that will earn Incredibles 2 this sterling reputation as a sequel that both earns its place alongside the original as well as one that improves upon it. Incredibles 2 will undoubtedly please the generation that grew up on it and are now entering their early twenties, but as someone who was among the Toy Story faithful, Pixar blossoming just before we did, I was getting ready to enter my senior year of high school when The Incredibles was released and feel no inherent connection to that original whatsoever. Due to this and the fact we live in a time where the market is saturated by super heroes it was genuinely surprising how much joy came from watching a family of super heroes strike a balance between feeding the machine and rebelling against it. Which, as Pixar sequels go, is par for the course. 

THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD Review

Director Patrick Hughes has three directorial credits to his name; one I've never seen, another the watered down third installment in the Expendables franchise, and a third in this late-in-the-summer entry cleverly titled The Hitman's Bodyguard that seems intent on capitalizing on the penchant of its two stars for choosing cheap and easy over challenging and risky. Such choices typically provide audiences a few laughs and producers failed financial returns so why Lionsgate thought this might be the exception to the rule is uncertain. Whether it be Ryan Reynolds in disasters like R.I.P.D. or the mildly intriguing but woefully undercooked Self/less to that of Samuel L. Jackson in any number of the projects he tends to choose in between Tarantino and Marvel flicks (think The Man or Formula 51) the fact of the matter is it seemed pretty obvious what we were getting into from the moment the first trailer for The Hitman's Bodyguard was released no matter how much of a surprise it might have felt like it could potentially be. Sure, the premise is cute, but sole screenwriter Tom O'Connor (Fire to Fire AKA one of those direct to DVD Bruce Willis actioners) does little to nothing with the main idea and mostly puts the naturally charismatic personas of Jackson and Reynolds into tired buddy cop scenarios that result in a stale story and a bland experience that is neither consistently funny enough for us to excuse it's formulaic narrative or dark enough to challenge us in unexpected ways. This brings to light the real issue going on within The Hitman's Bodyguard in that it doesn't have a real idea of what it wants to be. Rather, Hughes pulls O'Connor's obviously uneven script in so many different directions that it ultimately fails to succeed in any one of the many genres and/or styles it attempts. I'd like to imagine that Hughes really thought he was pulling off something special and legitimately fun by getting back to the kind of balls to the wall, abundance of blood, unafraid to show death in spades-type action movies that Steven Seagal, Nicolas Cage, or even Harrison Ford might have made twenty some odd years ago, but while Hughes shows us these tendencies time and time again they are either executed so poorly they render themselves empty or they don't lean far enough into any one genre so as to play to the strengths of the tropes of that genre-remaining somewhere in the middle of all these things it wants to be without actually being any of those things. Honestly, it will be a wonder if the film leaves any impression on viewers other than how its use of soundtrack rivals that of last year's summer movie season closer, Suicide Squad. That's the only thing I'm still laughing about; its blatant disregard for how such tools are supposed to be utilized which, coincidentally, effectively summarizes the root cause of everything that goes wrong in this movie.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND Review

In the vein of Marc Webb going from (500) Days of Summer to The Amazing Spider-Man and Colin Trevorrow from the quaint Safety Not Guaranteed to Jurassic World, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have plucked indie director Jordan Vogt-Roberts from the safety of his summer getaway that he so lovingly crafted in his 2013 break-out, The Kings of Summer, and thrust him into the world of blockbusters with literally one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history: King Kong. In an effort to re-boot the property that hasn't been touched since Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson's epic attempt in 2005 and build a cinematic universe a la Marvel with Gareth Edwards 2014 iteration of Godzilla, WB and Legendary have given Vogt-Roberts the keys to Skull Island AKA the home of the titular Kong and several other species of creatures, most of which are prehistoric in nature, but in other cases-are species that come straight from the pages of an old school horror/fantasy novel. A place where those who own the earth really reside, the place that God forgot to finish. The place where not only a human tribe somehow still resides, but so is there proof of dinosaurs, of more than one Kong, and of devils from the deep that the best character in the film affectionately refers to as "skullcrawlers". And so, the question is-what has the director done with such an environment to elevate the mythology it inherently carries? What has he done to give this mythical island a real sense of place and of substance and of tangibility? Well, the answer to that question is more positive than what the response might be to, "How good is the movie overall?" as the movie itself is pleasant and fun enough, but the real value in the piece comes from seeing that of Kong do what audiences want to see him do on a large scale and creating a full-on world in which these unbelievably thin characters and rote plot exist. It is because this world in which these things exist does indeed feel so lived in and palpable that much is forgiven. Even the special effect that is Kong himself holds more weight and authenticity than one might expect with the film eliciting a real soul from the beast which is more than it can say for the majority of its human cast. This is all to say that Kong: Skull Island certainly has its issues and could benefit from having at least one protagonist other than the movie's eponymous monster that we could sympathize with, but in a strange turn of events the spectacle holds more significance than the non-existent emotions and ideas it seems to have never had any ambition of carrying. In that regard, this is very much decent enough popcorn entertainment-fine if not completely forgettable.

xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE Review

It is with great pleasure that I report xXx: Return of Xander Cage is as dumb and ridiculous as it should be. First and foremost I guess it is important to state that there was no need for this third outing in the xXx series, but as with so many franchises these days we get a lot of what we didn't think we needed, but that they're going to give to us anyways. It makes sense given the whole "brand recognition" line of thinking within the studio system at the moment, but while many of the fruits of this line of thinking yield final products as pointless and joyless as expected given their inherently unwarranted status it is nice that every once in a while such thinking yields something as fun and self-aware as xXx: Return of Xander Cage. It has been fifteen years since Vin Diesel took on the mantle of a James Bond figure via the X-Games in what was no doubt intended to be a spiritual successor of sorts to the original The Fast and the Furious as Diesel re-teamed with director Rob Cohen for xXx the year after The Fast and the Furious became a surprise smash. Like he did initially with the Fast franchise, Diesel opted not to return for the xXx sequel in 2005, State of the Union, which picked up Ice Cube as Darius Stone to fill Diesel's Xander Cage's spot in the xXx program with it being reported Cage died in Bora Bora a few years after the events of the original film. And now, as he did with Fast in 2009, Diesel has returned to a franchise he started and then abandoned after efforts outside such franchises haven't worked out as well as the actor/producer/social media champion likely hoped they would. It's hard to blame the guy as he approaches the age of fifty this summer and undoubtedly understands he won't be able to make such movies (or such money) for much longer. The persona Diesel pulled off as Cage at thirty-five already feels somewhat strained here-especially in scenes engineered to make Diesel look like the baddest dude on the planet-but director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, Eagle Eye) and his editors keep things moving along at such a quick pace and with so much energy it's difficult to get caught up on any one detail. It also doesn't hurt that F. Scott Frazier's (The Numbers Station) screenplay layers in multiple team members to take some of the pressure off Diesel carrying this entire thing on his aging shoulders while simultaneously becoming another casualty of the Avengers effect where it's now more lucrative and enticing to have a team of xXx-er's rather than a sole ambassador of bad ass.     

Official Trailer for KONG: SKULL ISLAND

The first glimpse of the latest re-boot/re-make/re-imagining of the King Kong mythos we received this past summer looked visually engaging, but was always going to have deliver that something extra to differentiate itself from being just another in a long line of blockbusters that will now be populating theaters from March until August and now, this new official trailer gives us how exactly it stands to do that: John C. Reilly. In something of an interesting twist I couldn't have seen coming from a mile away (though I admittedly haven't been following this movie or its production too closely) it seems Reilly will serve as both the audience and a large amount of the ensemble casts way "in" to the world that Kong now dominates. He looks to be an explorer of some kind who became stranded on the island Kong inhabits and more or less took up with the indigenous people. That is, until the likes of a new batch of explorers show up (headed by John Goodman and Straight Outta Compton's Corey Hawkins) to mess things up. Again, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (The Kings of Summer) has delivered a visually pleasing trailer that contains not only a solid amount of action and spectacle, but through Reilly he has also mixed in a fair amount of humor and so I'm even more interested to see what the director has done as I've probably watched his debut feature a handful of times and think his temprement could play will in the blockbuster arena. That said, Vogt-Roberts has already entered the franchise world as Skull Island is seemingly Warner Bros. and Legendary's attempt to bring King King and Godzilla head to head after establishing the latter in director Gareth Edward's 2014 Godzilla film. No matter the future plans though, I'm excited to see what Vogt-Roberts has in store for us in just a few short months. Kong: Skull Island also stars Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Tian Jing, Jason Mitchell, John Ortiz, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Toby Kebbell, Eugene Cordero, and opens on March 10, 2017.

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN Review

Yes, Miss. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is one of those young adult adaptations where a seemingly normal kid who possesses zero self-confidence comes to learn that he's special in some capacity. That he is in fact "the chosen one" and that without his presence an evil plan couldn't possibly be thwarted. Director Tim Burton's (Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) adaptation of author Ransom Riggs' best-selling novel is indeed that type of movie and there is no eluding those comparisons. What allows this seeming cookie-cutter product to come off a different conveyor belt than some of its peers though is the level of uniqueness with which it is operating in. Riggs' novel plays by the conventions of the genre, sure, but there are so many fresh and interesting ideas brought to the table that it is easy to see past the rather standard narrative beats. It is all about the journey rather than the destination, right? If one has little trouble buying into that saying than they should have no trouble finding a point in which they can immerse themselves in the world of Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) and her peculiars. While I can admit to the fact the adaptation (penned by Jane Goldman of Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, and Kingsman fame) has a few shortcomings in not giving a few of its exceptionally talented cast members enough to do while sporting other scenes in which the exposition is far too glaring the overall product we are delivered is one of wonder and curiosity. I can only imagine going into the film having not read the source material that the plot could come off somewhat convoluted-especially in the obligatory action-heavy third act-but more times than not Goldman finds interesting ways to speak around the necessities of the plot which are only aided by the visual flair of Burton who finds himself firmly in his own wheelhouse with this world. From the overly dark and dreary opening credits sequence to the way in which it cuts abruptly to sunny Florida where Burton once again chastises the slums of suburbia it is clear Burton is back in a field where he feels his creative juices are free to flow. Essentially-the guy can do whatever he chooses and it will likely work in this alternate reality where what we come to be treated to is a fully realized world with special powers giving way to numerous adventures that is only halted from time to time by the not fully realized characters that populate it.

First Trailer for KONG: SKULL ISLAND Starring Tom Hiddleston

Well, Warner Bros. is certainly knocking it out of the park today in terms of quantity as not only have we seen trailers for their upcoming DC slate, but now they have released the first look at their re-imagining of the King Kong myth that they intend to make a part of another extended universe by pairing the King of the Apes up with the Godzilla from the 2014 film. While it has been just over a decade since Peter Jackson's three-hour epic that brought Kong back to the big screen WB has now pulled in Kings of Summer director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (in the tradition of Marc Webb, Colin Trevorrow, and Gareth Edwards) to once again launch a franchise of sorts by hopefully bringing some of his independent mentality to large scale blockbuster filmmaking. While it feels odd that something as big as this trailer makes the film look will be opening in March rather than the middle of summer that is also something of a compliment in that the film looks like a full throttle action/popcorn flick that will be easy to enjoy and difficult to dislike. With this first trailer for the film largely being a sizzle reel of sorts (it's absolutely stunning by the way) we get very little indication of what the story will be other than the standard "team of explorers ventures deep into uncharted territory," and that we get little to no dialogue from any of the principal cast gives very little sense of what types of characters we'll be dealing with as well, though Samuel L. Jackson certainly seems to once again be enjoying himself by hamming it up in another (see Tarzan) action tentpole that ironically feels like something from a bygone era. Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Tian Jing, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, John Ortiz, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Toby Kebbell, and Eugene Cordero join Jackson for the ride as Kong: Skull Island opens on March 10th, 2017.

Teaser Trailer for xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE Starring Vin Diesel

Confession time: I've never seen 2005's xXx: State of the Union. Do I need to? Because I really don't care to and yet, part of me is excited to see Vin Diesel return to the role he originated in 2002 in the wake of the original The Fast and the Furious' success. Diesel was all kinds of set to be the next big action star after he completely dominated that 2001 street racing Rob Cohen movie and no doubt secured the paycheck for Chronicles of Riddick soon after, but was also the guy who would churn out another Rob Cohen picture before deciding not to return for 2 Fast 2 Furious in '03. While we may have been upset with Mr. Diesel at the time for letting his new found BFF Brian go off to Miami alone and reunite with Tyrese it would all work out in the end. Deciding to make xXx rather than a second Fast & Furious film is certainly proving helpful now as the actor is having his cake and eating it too. Not only is he secured by at least three more F&F films, but he is now bringing back those one-off's that he also didn't commit to sequels to (see the aforementioned State of the Union) in order to fill in the paycheck gaps between F&F films. I don't want to sound too negative as the actor is part of the insanely solid cast of the much anticipated Ang Lee film, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, that will surely be an Oscar contender this fall, but was there really any need for another entry into what will be a fifteen year old property by the time this new movie arrives in theaters? No, but like I said-I'm not as opposed as I might have been once upon a time. The original xXx was a fine enough action flick that capitalized on the cheesy guilty pleasures of the genre at that point in time and while I don't remember much of the movie something in me hopes this new film will play in that same tone of not being overly self-aware or serious, but rather just a good time in the moment that we won't remember a few hours later. xXx: Return of Xander Cage also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Ruby Rose, Nina Dobrev, Toni Collette, Donnie Yen, Tony Jaa, Deepika Padukone, Rory McCann, and opens on January 20th, 2017.

LEGEND OF TARZAN Review

Say what you want, I certainly would have prior to walking into the new live-action adaptation about the lord of the apes, but The Legend of Tarzan is a welcome surprise in a sea of lackluster, would-be summer blockbusters. Taking keys from Chris Nolan and Sam Mendes in their grand but grounded takes on mythological heroes like Batman and Bond director David Yates (the last four Harry Potter films and this November's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) has created a Tarzan film that is very much in line with the origin stories of these larger than life figures while simultaneously steeping itself in some of the politics of the time all the while remaining self-aware enough through the presence of one Samuel L. Jackson to remind us we shouldn't take things too seriously as we're still talking about a man who was raised by apes and travels by vine. In short, The Legend of Tarzan is kind of everything one could want out of a big-budget summer blockbuster as it features not a re-tread of the same story Disney animation told seventeen years ago, but more a re-structuring of the origin tale through a brand new adventure that lends the action some purpose and includes some unexpected weight in its story. Some will list this new incarnation of Tarzan as empty spectacle, but I'm hard pressed to understand the reasoning as not only does the screenplay by Adam Cozad (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) and Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan) feature some templates for what Yates orchestrates as pretty impressive action sequences without relying too heavily on visual effects, but it also features scenes of crisp dialogue where what could have easily been stock characters have real, intelligent conversations that not only move the plot forward, but acknowledge the larger world that their actions exist within and will ultimately effect. Maybe it is due to the lack of expectations when walking into the film, but it quickly proved to be more than another summer tentpole to come off the blockbuster conveyor belt. Bringing us into this world and to these characters we thought we knew there are added layers that enthrall. Becoming invested in these familiar names as played by a top notch cast we come to care about the somewhat complicated if not familiar plot that is still able to put just enough of a spin on what was expected that the reality of what we've received is so much more fulfilling than what I could have imagined prior to sitting down in the theater. In all honesty, I'm not sure one could make a better Tarzan movie than what we have here.

First Trailer for MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN

I read Ransom Riggs debut novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, last year at the urging of my English teacher wife who'd come across the book and devoured it in less than a week and was anxious to get the two since released sequels as soon as possible. I enjoyed the book well enough, but was somewhat let down by the conventions of the narrative despite the inspiration for the novel being photographs Riggs had collected that he'd originally intended to publish as a picture book. At the suggestion of his editor he instead used them as a guide from which to put together a narrative. Still, there were enough interesting facets, characters, and intrigue within the world Riggs had created along the way to make up for the rather predictable antagonist and slightly convoluted backstory it took to make the threat seem palpable. My hope is that these few shortcomings in the novel will better translate to the motion picture format and be successful enough to kick off a franchise for 20th Century Fox as, despite initial reservations, I've been anxious to dive into the sequels Hollow City and Library of Souls. I also initially had reservations about Tim Burton taking on the film adaptation of the novel. Burton seemed the obvious choice, but from the looks of this first trailer it seems the auteur has really invested in bringing this world and these strange characters to life in a substantial way. The film looks gorgeous and while certainly being in Burton's wheelhouse looks unique enough to draw in even those who have grown weary of the director's style and spotty filmography over the last decade or so. I enjoyed Big Eyes well enough, but can't help but feel we haven't received top notch Burton since 2007's Sweeney Todd. My fingers are crossed this is a true return to form. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children stars Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Samuel L. Jackson, Kim Dickens, Allison Janney, Ella Purnell, Judi Dench, Chris O'Dowd, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp and opens on September 30, 2016.