Wonder Woman - Movie Review

Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, Said Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock and Lucy Davis.
Written by Allan Heinberg, Zack Snyder & Jason Fuchs.
Directed by Patty Jenkins.

★★★½

After she stole the show in Batman v. Superman, I'm not surprised Wonder Woman is still winning in her own movie. The real surprise is that DC has delivered its first really good movie since The Dark Knight.

We met Diana (Gal Gadot) in modern times, but this is her origin story. Diana is being raised to be the next queen of the Amazons, but when WWI pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes on to their beach, these women need to confront the outside world they've been able to ignore for millenia.

Patty Jenkins (Monster) does a good job balancing action and humor. Act I has the beach fight; terrific. Act II has No Man's Land; excellent. Act III has the big-explosions showdown with the main villain. Honestly that might be the movie's weak link, in that all of these movies tend to end with big-explosions showdowns.

Gadot captures the combination of fierceness and naivete of Wonder Woman. She has the physiciality down, but she's quite charming in her fish-out-of-water scenes where this Amazon, who's never met a man before, must now fit in 1917 England. The chemistry between Gadot and Pine is solid. Like Christopher Reeve/Margot Kidder solid.

Really enjoyed it. It's in my top five for 2017 so far.

Hell or High Water - Movie Review

Starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Burningham, Kevin Rankin, Marin Ireland and Dale Dickey.
Written by Taylor Sheridan.
Directed by David Mackenzie.

★★★★

The Wolf of Wall Street. The Big Short. 99 Homes. All inspired by true events, and those events would bleed into Hell or High Water, where rural north Texas feels the weight of poverty and greed.

The movie is about two pairs of men, and both could have their own film, and I'd be happy following either one. It's a credit to the filmmakers that there is no scene wasted.

One one side, there are the cops. Jeff Bridges is the crusty old marshal who's about to retire, and Gil Burningham (Twilight) is his Native-American partner who puts up with all of his race jokes. When a couple small banks are robbed, this is their chance at cracking one last big case.

On the other side are the robbers. Chris Pine and Ben Foster play brothers in dire straits. Their mother has just died and the bank is about to foreclose on her ranch unless they come up with the cash to pay off her reverse mortgage and back taxes by the end of the week.

This isn't a glossy production. This movie feels lived in. The mud caked on their cars feels earned. The small parts and extras look like real people. And the four main characters are all outstanding. I would argue this is Chris Pine's best performance to date.

Suicide Squad Stays #1 at Box Office

For the weekend of August 12-14, 2016, Suicide Squad easily held on to the top spot. After breaking the August opening-weekend box-office record, its 67% drop was to be expected. Its worldwide gross is now past $465 million, and this is before opening in lucrative countries like China, India, Germany and Japan. (For comparison, China alone was responsible for $190 million of Captain America: Civil War's $1.15 billion).

Sausage Party's tracking grew the closer it came, and when the overwhelmingly positive reviews came in, its success was assured. It also only had a $19 million production budget, which just makes me wonder why it took $105 million to make Ice Age 5.

Pete's Dragon opened to okay business, but it'll need good word-of-mouth and strong overseas performance to make a profit, and Disney could use some better news after Alice Through the Looking Glass and The BFG flopped. (Don't weep for them just yet. They also had Zootopia, The Jungle Book, CA:CW, and Finding Dory).

Florence Foster Jenkins joins Ricki & the Flash as an example that late summer Meryl Streep is no longer as bankable as she'd been in years past (with titles like Mamma Mia!, Julie & Julia and Hope Springs).

On fewer screens, Anthropoid wasn't able to garner much interest. It may look like a sci-fi title, but it's about the two men who carried out the assassination of SS Nazi monster Reinhard Heydrich in 1942. It stars Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) and Jamie Dornan (Battlestar Galactica).

Hell or High Water came out of nowhere for the highest per-screen average of over $18,000 on 32 screens for a $592,000 total. It's a modern-day Western starring Jeff Bridges as a sheriff on the trail of two bank robbers (Chris Pine, Ben Foster). Expect it to expand in the next week or so.

Opens August 19
KUBO & THE TWO STRINGS with the voices of Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey.
WAR DOGS with Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Bradley Cooper, Ana de Armas and Shaun Toub.
BEN-HUR with Jack Huston, Morgan Freeman, Toby Kebbell and Ayelet Zurer.

Star Trek Beyond - Movie Review

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Deep Roy and Shohreh Aghdashloo.
Written by Simon Pegg & Doug Jung.
Directed by Justin Lin.

★★★

After Star Trek into Darkness turned out to be a remake of The Wrath of Khan, they wanted to be a little more original this time around. And they were. This felt like a two-hour episode of the original series, so by being more faithful to the spirit of the series, it was able to break out and tell a new story.

The Enterprise is now more than halfway through its five-year mission, and the crew is starting to feel bored. But then an opportunity comes along to explore a nebula where no one knows what's inside it, and things sound interesting. Of course once they go inside, they're attacked, the Enterprise is destroyed, and they're stranded on an unknown planet.

The movie takes its time to give everyone character moments. We've gotten to know them; now it lets us enjoy their interactions. Spock and McCoy spend a good section of the film stranded together, and their interplay was the most enjoyable part of the movie. (Karl Urban's best work yet in the role.) It also benefits from guest work by Idris Elba as the main villain Krall, and from Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service) as Jaylah, a different alien who's been stranded a long time herself.

The late, great Anton Yelchin is just part of the ensemble as Chekov, and I can't help but wish they'd given him more to do. But they had the luxury of thinking they could just do that in the next movie.

Star Trek is a likable series. It's never my #1 must-see of the year, but I'm always glad when the opportunity to see another one rolls around. Especially when it's good.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - Movie Review

Starring Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh, Keira Knightley and Colm Feore.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh.

★★★

This is the epitome of the standard, competent spy thriller. Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) is a Cold War hero moved to the 21st century, where Russians are still the main bad guys. This doesn't reignite the franchise any more than the Ben Affleck-led Sum of All Fears in 2001.

But it is in the hands of director Kenneth Branagh, who has shown he knows how to add a little fun to tentpoles. Ryan's origin, recruitment and training are all handled efficiently. When we get to the main case, when a lot of the suspense is happening on computer screens and thumb-drives, the pacing and direction are still tight. Branagh's got that Putin dead-eye stare down, and Costner's a fine mentor for Pine.  I didn't have a problem with Keira Knightley's acting but her character didn't feel consistent.

Pine's good, and I wouldn't mind seeing another installment, but based on the box office, I think that might not happen. It needed to gross $170 million worldwide to justify a sequel and today is when it passes $100 million.

Ride Along is #1

Kevin Hart is the next Chris Tucker.

Critics may have lambasted it, but audiences didn't care.  Ride Along is an unqualified hit. Between this and the 21 Jump Street series, Ice Cube is keeping himself relevant in movies as well.

The Nut Job looks awful, but families who rejected Walking with Dinosaurs and already saw Frozen had to see something.  Meanwhile, Chris Pine still hasn't happened as a movie star yet, try though Paramount might. I wonder if they would have been better off calling it Tom Clancy's Shadow Recruit.

Award buzz has really helped American Hustle. Despite losing some screens, it still managed to improve on its box office from the week before.

Random Movie Stuff - 10/17/13

- Director Brad Peyton will reunite with his Journey 2 The Mysterious Island star Dwayne Johnson for San Andreas 3D, an action thriller about a giant earthquake from the San Andreas fault.

- Keanu Reeves will star in John Wick, about a retired hitman who is forced back into action by a sadistic young thug (Game of Thrones' Alfie Allen). Bridget Moynahan, Willem Dafoe, Michael Nyqvist, Adrianne Palicki and Dean Winters co-star.

- Chris Pine (Star Trek) has signed on as the first of three new Horrible Bosses for the sequel, scheduled to open November 26, 2014.  Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis and Jamie Foxx will all return.

- Ty Simpkins, the kid from Insidious, has joined the cast of Jurassic Park 4, titled Jurassic World. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard (The Help) and Jake Johnson (New Girl). It's directed by Colin Trevorrow (who also worked with Johnson on Safety Not Guaranteed) and it's set to open June 12, 2015.

- Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton and Jason Schwartzman are reuniting with their Moonrise Kingdom director Wes Anderson in The Grand Budapest Hotel. It opens March 7. It co-stars Owen Wilson, Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody and Tom Wilkinson.

- The Maze Runner has been pushed back to September 19, 2014. Based on the book by James Dashner, it's set in a post-apocalyptic world where young Thomas (MTV Teen Wolf's Dylan O'Brien) finds himself with his memory erased in a community of boys trapped in a large maze. It co-stars Will Poulter (We're the Millers), Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Game of Thrones), Kaya Scodelario (Clash of the Titans) and Patricia Clarkson (Shutter Island, The Green Mile).

Star Trek Into Darkness - Movie Review

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bruce Greenwood, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.
Directed by JJ Abrams.

★★★

This is a movie that is determined to have fun.  It plays with old Trek tropes (maybe a little too much this time around) while blazing a trail for the new.

It starts out with characters on the run.  Maybe if this had been an episode of the TV show it would have started with Kirk and McCoy landing on the planet, observing the sentient beings there. But we're in a movie, so let's skip to the action.  Kirk and McCoy banter as they run, until they get to a cliff where they don't even slow down; they just jump 60 feet and fortunately don't hit any rocks when they land in its ocean.

Turns out Kirk violated the Prime Directive while there.  (You remember the Prime Directive. That plot device that was violated every third episode.)  He gets demoted, and Admiral Pike gets the Enterprise back.  This can't end well for Pike, no matter what timeline we're in.  Hopefully this time he won't wind up as a quadriplegic who can only communicate with a "Yes/No" light, as he did on the series.  (Spoiler: he doesn't.)

Benedict Cumberbatch, an actor blessed with a name out of the Douglas Adams universe, plays the far-less-adventurously-nomenclatured "John Harrison", a domestic terrorist who is apparently plotting to start an intergalactic war.  Cumberbatch has a deep, symphonious voice, one where every syllable carries weight.

I caught the 3D version, and it was fine.  There were some set pieces where it worked well, but usually I forgot it was in 3D.  Which can be a compliment too.

My main criticism would be those "this is my JJ Abrams signature" lens flares on the bridge of the Enterprise.  I really hope he doesn't fill Star Wars Episode VII up with those.  Meanwhile I also hope they find a good director for Star Trek: Bring on the Klingons.

Rise of the Guardians - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Jude Law and Isla Fisher.
Directed by Peter Ramsey.

★★★

With childhood heroes like these, who needs the Avengers?

Okay, Avengers was a better movie, but this is a decent entry into the animated Christmas movie sub-genre.  I liked it about as much as Polar Express.

Santa Claus (Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Fisher) and the silent Sandman have been defending the children of the Earth for hundreds of years.  They answer to the Man in the Moon, who somehow telepathically communicates to them.  When the Boogeyman (Law) regains some of his long-dormant strength, a new Guardian is selected to join them: Jack Frost (Pine).

Frost is more about mischief than protection, and he has to learn to play nice with others and find his inner strength, believe in himself, etc. (Ever notice how many kids' movies have the message "Believe in yourself?")

It's missing a lot of the pop-culture references and cynicism that's marked so many DreamWorks Animation's efforts.  There's some amusing stuff there for adults, but it's mainly aimed at kids.  I found it a bit strange to have Santa be this tattooed Russian sword-fighter, and the Easter Bunny's a bit of an Aussie thug. I'm guessing one of his inspirations was Rabbit from Winnie-the-Pooh.  The Tooth Fairy's more bird than Tinkerbell, and Jack Frost is just your regular teenage boy.

Random Movie Stuff - 3/27/12

- Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass, Hugo, Dark Shadows) has been offered the title role in MGM's remake of Carrie, based on the classic Stephen King novel about a shy girl with telekinetic powers who has the worst prom ever.  Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry) will direct.

- Chloe Moretz has also joined the cast of The Drummer, a biopic about Beach boys drummer Dennis Wilson, who died in 1983.  It stars Aaron Eckhart, Vera Farmiga and Rupert Grint (Harry Potter).

- Kenneth Branagh (Thor) will direct the next Jack Ryan movie.  The reboot would star Chris Pine, who'd star after filming on Star Trek 2 is complete.  Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck have played Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan in movies past.

- Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis have been offered the leads in Jupiter Ascending, the next sci-fi movie from Andy & Lana Wachowski (The Matrix).

- Melissa Leo (The Fighter) has joined the cast of Oblivion, a sci-fi thriller from Joseph Kosinski (Tron Legacy).  It stars Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones).

- Greg Dean Schmitz's Upcomingmovies.com was one of my must-visit sites about 10 years ago.  Yahoo bought his site awhile back, and now he's the main news guy for RottenTomatoes.com, a site I currently can't go a week without visiting.  Here's some news tidbits from his Weekly Ketchup column, which gives his top ten movie stories of the week (be they fresh or rotten):

1.  Michael Bay's producing a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, now titled Ninja Turtles, as the plan to have them actually be aliens.
2.  Brett Ratner's name has been attached to direct Midnight Run 2, a sequel to the 1988 hit with Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin.  DeNiro's expected to return but not Grodin.
3.  Jessica Biel will play Vera Miles in Alfred Hitchcock & the Making of Psycho, starring Anthony Hopkins (Hitchcock), Helen Mirren (his wife), James D'Arcy (Anthony Perkins), Scarlett Johansson (Janet Leigh) and Michael Stuhlbarg (agent Lew Wasserman).
4.  Ron Howard's production company Imagine Entertainment is developing another big-screen treatment of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.