Mission: Impossible––Rogue Nation Review (2015)

Mission: Impossible––Rogue Nation

  There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who like Tom Cruise movies and those who don't. I am all for Tom Cruise movies and I don't think one person who saw Mission: Impossible had a bad thing to say about it. I would also like to mention that the only other Mission Impossible movie I've seen is Ghost Protocol, which I very much enjoyed. That said, I wasn't as impressed with Rogue Nation as I thought I'd be, despite all of the hype and good reviews. I don't say this because the characters are cartoonish and survive multiple situations in which they'd very likely be dead, although that is true, but I say it because I was bored at times. As I'm sure you know, bored is something nobody should ever be during a Tom Cruise movie. Granted, there were some really good action sequences and chases, but I really wasn't too invested in the characters. It felt like I'd seen everything before. Is that to say this film is bad? No, I think it has entertainment value, but after watching this year's earlier release of Mad Max: Fury Road, I don't think I can be blown away by action in comparison. 

  Another thing that bothered me was some of the comedic relief. I like Simon Pegg, but I felt that some of his line delivery fell flat. If they wanted us to laugh, I think having Jeremy Renner as the comedic relief would have worked out better. 

  In the end, I wanted to like this movie, but in my opinion, Ghost Protocol was more memorable. Still, if you enjoy Mission Impossible and you enjoy Tom Cruise, I'd say go check it out. 5 out of 10 stars. (Rent It)

The Gift Review (2015)

The Gift 

  The Gift is directed by Joel Edgerton, produced by Joel Edgerton, written by Joel Edgerton, and acted in by Joel Edgerton. Can you say multi-faceted dude?  

  While the trailer isn't a great representative of the film, turns out this is one to see. Because this is Edgerton's first movie and he wore many different hats for it, I am going to talk about him first. I am a big fan of Edgerton's work in one of my all time favorite movies, Warrior, and I thought he was good in Exodus, despite the movie being not so good. Because he has such a teddy bear face, I wasn't confident he could pull off the role of someone intimidating/scary, even with the rapist mustache. Let me tell you though, he proved me wrong. He has such an unassuming way about him and he really committed to this character. His subtle, subdued performance makes you uneasy, but at the same time, you kind of feel sympathetic for the guy. Edgerton's directorial debut is quite the achievement. It's a very well shot film and it is masterful at building tension. 

  Rebecca Hall is the center lead of the film and she did great as I expected, but what I was extremely impressed with, was Jason Bateman's performance. Seeing though he usually acts in comedic roles, it was surprising to see him nail such a dramatic, three-dimensional character.

  The Gift is really a conversational piece and when it's over, there are a lot of layers you can pull back and appreciate. I really really enjoyed this film. 9 out of 10 stars. (I'd Buy It On Blu-ray)

Fantastic Four Review (2015)

Fantastic Four

  Here we have yet another reboot from the Marvel universe, only unlike Spiderman, this isn't getting better. Fantastic 4 doesn't start off bad. Miles Teller and Jamie Bell are our leaders into the story and I thought they were quite likeable. That, or maybe I'm just a biased fan of the actors. ANYWAY!

  It's not a secret that this movie wasn't popular at all with critics, winning itself a 9% out of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Ouch. Do I think it deserves that low of a score? Mmm, yeah. But before I get to the many problems of the film, I'll tell you the few things I liked. Firstly, their team had a lot of chemistry in the beginning. I bought their friendship and liked them as a group. Secondly, I really dug how they got their powers and their physical reactions to their powers, despite the CGI being absolutely horrific.   

  I kept thinking the movie would get better after this, but it gets soooo much worse. Once they get their powers, (Which is about 45 minutes into the movie) they immediately become products of the government and then the movie rushes through their training so that they already know how to control their powers. Then an hour into the movie (mind you the movie is only like an hour and 45 minutes) Dr. Doom comes into the picture. While he is pretty menacing and his powers are cool, he was hardly in the movie at all. I'm not even exaggerating, like what the heck. Miles Teller, Jamie Bell and Kate Mara seem to clock out on the 45 minute mark, probably because they realized how terrible it was, and the only one really trying is Michael B. Jordan. This movie was such a waste of great actors and such a waste of a director with so much potential. Fox gave the artists no liberty and now they are paying for it with this piece of garbage. Not only would Fantastic Four have benefited from a lot of re-writes to the script, it would benefited from being thrown into that teleporting machine and shipped off to a different planet. The ending was terrible, the actors had nothing to work with, and the studio tinkered so much with the end half that it felt like a completely different film. The more you think about it, the worse it gets. 2 out of 10 stars. (Skip It)

Ant-Man Review (2015)

Ant-Man

  I went into Ant-Man with very very low expectations, even despite the pretty good rotten tomatoes score. I don't know, something about a guy who can shrink into the size of an ant seemed kinda silly to me. Paul Rudd, who usually does comedy roles, was playing the main character which made me very curious to see how this would turn out. To my surprise, it actually turned out pretty good! While the concept is just as silly in the movie as it is in the trailer, it knows it's silly and it capitalizes on that fact. Do we take anyone in this movie seriously? Not really. Are we really invested emotionally in any of the characters? Not really. If someone were to die, would I care? No. But it's fun and it gave me some good laughs. The way they did the shrinking power was actually really cool too and fun to watch when he's training. My gripe with the movie is with Evangeline Lily's character and her father. They tried to make this deep, kinda broken relationship with the two of them, and it just came off as really melodramatic. Other than that, Ant-Man was pretty entertaining. Maybe a little long, but better than Avengers: Age of Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy. 3.5 out of 5 Stars. (Worth Ticket Price)