Reviews
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
A typical James Cameron film.
As everyone will tell you, the CGI and effects were beautiful as expected from a James Cameron film. But the story will leave you wanting more out of the main character herself.
Alita (Rosa Salazar) is a reasonable and interesting character but for everything told through the story, she still feels incomplete at the end of the film. Dr. Ido (Christopher Waltz) does a commendable job how ever this movie does not bring out a great deal of his acting ability you would expect from someone so talented. The villain's themselves are not particularly memorable even though they are brought further by decent to good actors and actresses.
I will say I think this film has something to work with and something to build on if they do decide to go ahead with a sequel, but in terms of the "wow" factor I may not even watch this again unless it's on Netflix.
Doragon bôru chô: Burorî (2018)
This was surprisingly good.
For a series that doesn't place a heavy emphasis in detailed plots and developments, the story was explained well enough from both the antagonist's to the protagonist's. Best news about this movie is Broly not screaming Kakarot's name for his entire screen time.
CGI and other special effects were well executed and brought a ton of flavor to the film along with the fight scenes themselves. If you are wanting a movie that strictly highlights the awesome duo of Goku and Vegeta then this is the movie for you! Best Dragon Ball movie yet.
Like most anime action movies it does have it's obvious drawbacks, but temper your expectations and you will come away pleased.
Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
It falls short in several area's behind the original.
This is not a bad movie by any means but it's clear Hollywood doesn't make movies like they used too. Singing and acting are borderline average from the lead actors Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda and they kept this from being a great movie. Both just felt incomplete in terms of what they brought to the screen with their respective characters (Mary and Jack).
Lin-Manuel Miranda (Jack) was just a bland actor, and while he did a nice ode to Van Dyke in terms of singing he fell short in bringing life to Jack and making the character his own. You can't blame him I suppose since Hollywood doesn't revolve around musicals anymore but when you watch Dick Van Dyke (as Bert in the original Mary Poppin's movie) and what he does, it's obvious Miranda doesn't have the same flair. He seemed to force his smiles and frown all the time as though he was always concentrating on his dancing, when compared to Van Dyke who looks as though he lives the role every day on screen.
Emily Blunt ( Mary Poppins) did a superior job in the acting department but it's clear she's no Julie Andrews (The original Mary Poppins) when she starts singing and that's a testament to how great Julie was in her prime. The songs themselves weren't as catchy as the original although they were written fairly well.
Positives though it was a solid movie and kudos to Rob Marshall the Director for doing his best to make this a perfect musical and successor to the original. The whole thing was terrifically choreographed and clever with scenes paying tribute to the original movie.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
Rowling has lost touch with her creation
This movie was an utter disappointment. My thought process is that fans of the Harry Potter will blame the director for the film being poor and choppy when really the issue was the writing in general. While the film has a plethora of good to great actors the characters they are portraying don't show much depth and even less sense to some of their decision making. Plus Harry Potter lore was tossed out the window by Rowling when she was writing this script so don't bother with trying to understand that. The very worst part of this film was the big twist she threw in to make the audience :gasp: except if you know anything about the lore and have watched alot of movies in your life you will just roll your eyes at how unoriginal and cliche it is. People may claim this was a movie to bridge the entire franchise for things to come in future films but it failed spectacularly. It honestly makes me question if Rowling even wrote the first film.
Troy: Fall of a City (2018)
Well that was a waste of time......
Well it started out with a little bit promise. I honestly liked the sets and the wardrobes, Troy was not gonna be big considering the time period so I didnt mind the lack of size. Dialogue left alot to be desired, hector was miscast and dont even get me started on Nestor and Achillies. But this movie is just bad. This is not a Broadway show or a small sitcom budget. They had millions of dollars rolling in and I'm sure hundreds of auditions for each part but these castings are the best they can do? Not to mention the writing which was average at best at it's high points. Really could have done a better (more accurate) job on this. And all of these people who say race shouldn't matter when it comes to art are probably the same ones screaming about white washing roles. I agree with the complaints but try and stay consistent.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Movie was great. Critics are terrible.
I'll keep this short. The only reason why this movie gets poor reviews from media critics is because this movie focuses on and celebrates the man instead of the politics. This movie takes nothing away from Freddie Mercury and does justice to the legend.