Movie Review: Captain Marvel

The super hero season seems to start earlier and earlier every year. Last year, I think Black Panther came out in March too. So, keeping with that theme, we have Captain Marvel, the first Marvel movie helmed by a lady director and a lady lead. What’s not to love? And I will try to refrain from spoilers, but Jude Law played to type, especially if you know about all his infidelities with babysitters in the past. This blog is a land mine for any MRAs out there, so keep moving if you’re one of those lost souls. Anyway, the movie was a solid origin story. I brought my char to the move, so, higher, faster, further, Charmander!

Higher, Faster, Further, Charmander

Brie Larson was delightful as Carol Danvers. Annette Benning was a fun placement in the MCU. There were a lot of people we’d seen in the past who I thought were long dead, but since the movie is set in the 1990s, that made it that much more interesting. Most of the MCU are pups compared to Captain Marvel. It was really nice to see an all-powerful woman. But then it begs the question, why didn’t they call her sooner when there were other issues? Like, in Ultron or the first Avengers movie?

Long story short, you should go see this movie. No Spoilers – look at me go! For the Hina test, dude, this movie is as clean as you can get. A female lead, a BFF that's African American. Samuel L Jackson - it had it all, plus a ginger cat!

Movie Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

When I heard Rami Malek was going to play Freddie Mercury, I was curious. Rami Malek’s Mr. Robot role is fairly monotone and bland. Freddie Mercury could not be further from that. Throughout Bohemian Rhapsody, the brooding portions of Mercury’s life come forward with Malek’s familiar, morose expression. The story is supposed to follow Mercury’s rise to stardom and diagnoses of HIV, but it feels like it plods at times. There are great sequences, if true, of the band creating some of their hits, like the title track, but also some of the anthems we’ve all grown to love.

I really can’t say anything outrageously bad about this movie. I liked it fine enough. The songs were fun, the cast of characters seemed lively. The intrigues and betrayal almost seemed obvious. Malek’s accent was off some of the time, and you couldn’t tell if it was his voice or Mercury’s that you were actually hearing. The band seemed to come off of the screen, having only ever really noticed Mercury, it was nice to see the rest of the people.

I genuinely felt sad for Mercury. He abandoned his family, was abandoned by his band, left with people around him that didn’t have his best interest in mind, at all, which is how he got HIV, it would seem. I cried through the last 20 minutes of the movie. Watching Malek as Mercury accept the news about his death sentence, which was exactly what it was in the 80s, and still perform at LiveAid was pretty remarkable. They blew the roof off of Wembley Stadium.

If you’re a fan of Queen, you will want to see this. If you’re a fairweather fan, you’ll probably still want to see this. It’s a fun romp, but don’t get the gourmet popcorn from AMC, it was like $10 for a small cup of popcorn. Being that this was a period piece, by default, it fails the Hina test. There were really only white men in the movie and one or two women. It was cute seeing his parents, but otherwise, there was no diversity or strong female characters.

Movie Review: Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween

I never saw the first Goosebumps movie, but I’m familiar with the series from Fox and the books, though I never read them, I’m aware of them. The premise of the movie is pretty simple, for the most part, kids find something they shouldn’t mess with, they mess with it, wackiness ensues. Like the House with the Clock in the Walls, this movie has Jack Black in it, but only briefly. The movie follows the story of a brother, his older sister, and his best friend as they battle Halloween come to life. 

I don’t want to spoil any of the movie, but for the most part, it was entertaining. I honestly don’t remember a lot of it. There were mostly a lot of laughs and a handful of genuine jump scares, but not much substance. It is a kids movie, with a bit for adults to find funny. RL Stine is an excellent writer, so the story holds up. I just never felt that invested, and the stakes were high enough. It just felt like it could have been a made-for-TV Halloween movie, one of those you used to see on ABC Family.

Onto the important stuff: the Hina test. This movie didn’t quite pass. It had a strong female character with the mom being a single parent raising two kids and the older sister doing what she can to save her brother. The best friend to the son was African American, so that’s nice, and the neighbor was Ken Jeong. He was kind of playing a bit of a caricature, but I’m not sure of what. I wish I had a middle grade, but I don’t – so this is more a fail than a pass. The movie was set in New York, so having a lot of white people wasn’t necessary. There was also a forced romance between the mom and the store manager of a pharmacy which brought nothing to the story.

If you like Goosebumps or like movies that are kind of scary, but really aren’t, then this is for you. Otherwise, I’d give a hard pass on this.

Movie Review: Venom

Action packed anti-hero movies can be a lot of fun. Tom Hardy with a wimpy American accent doesn’t do much for me, but it fit the character, to a small degree. For those of you that read the comics, watched the cartoon from the 90s, we know that there is more to Eddie Brock than being a seeming loser. The part where Eddie was a reporter who stopped at nothing to get the story was mostly correct, but in the comic, he never had the girl, which made him the perfect foil to Peter Parker, as he was always with or chasing Mary Jane. This isn’t critical to the plot of the story. The plot is somewhat hard to nail down. Is he a hero? Is he a comedian? Is it okay to laugh as Venom bites off someone’s head?

The story, if you go for that sort of thing, is about a reporter who is asked to do a fluff piece, but can’t follow instructions and pushes the envelope with a biotech, Elon Musk type, that has him fired and fires Brock’s girlfriend. Then one of the scientists gets cold feet, realizes that this isn’t okay, to kill homeless volunteers in the name of science. Brock finds out, through the scientist, finds his way into the facility, which mysteriously has no cameras, and frees one of the captives. Then the parasite grabs a hold of Eddie and the rest of the movie unfolds.

Honestly, this movie was kind of stupid. Does that mean I didn’t enjoy it? No. I have simple needs sometimes. Special effects can carry a movie. I mean, I wouldn’t pay more than the $7 I paid to see it. I also got the free comic, and my friend’s free comic, too. Tom Hardy is usually a good actor to watch, as is Michelle Williams. The rest of the cast was passable. It kind of felt like a B horror movie. Like, they skimped on the plot to spend more on the special effects. It showed. You might like it, but I can’t recommend it.

With respect to diversity, the main villain was an Indian dude and there was a strong female character in Michelle Williams. It barely passes, but it does.

Movie Review: Crazy Rich Asians

So, I’m not the romance movie sort. You should know this if you follow this blog. But, when I saw the fanfare for this movie, I was intrigued. A romance movie with like, no white people in it? Dude, sign me up! I’m already telling you that the movie passed the Hina test. While most of the actors were of the lighter-colored variety, there was still a ton of diversity and a lot of subtitles, which I loved.

You might see the title and wonder, what was this movie about? Well, the title should give a solid approximation – the movie was about a family of wealthy Asians and this woman who is dating their son, who is to inherit the fortune, manage the business. It is over-the-top in a fun sort of way. The parties are lavish. There was a friend, who knew the main character, played by Awkwafina, who is hilarious in every scene she’s in. Her family is new money and she tries to coach the main character to recognize she’s in for a crazy weekend.

The whole movie was wholesome fun. There wasn’t any shame shame scenes, no gratuitous nudity, it was a nice look at how a film could hit all the notes, happy, sad, elation, whatever, and not be too much, not be grotesque. I really liked this movie, all around, save for the predictability of it, which was expected. Romance movies rarely break from their path. I get why they’re all so formulaic, but it is still fun to watch.

Movie Review: The House with the Clock in the Walls

It’s been almost half a year since I saw a movie in the movie theatre…I was just slacking. I wanted to see a lot of the horror movies that came out, but I didn’t want to take the time to actually go to the theatre. But enough about me, you’re not here for updates on me.

A friend wanted to see this movie. I really don’t care for Jack Black, but a movie with Cate Blanchett is an event. I’ve missed far too many of her movies. She is really a treat. Years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing her live, at the Kennedy Center, performing in Street Car Named Desire. Anyway, this movie is about a kid, who loses his parents and is taking the bus to some city in Michigan to live with his uncle, who is estranged from his mother, but is the only family he has left. 

The kid gets to the house, and it appears to be haunted, but only to the viewer, not to the kid, not at first. He soon discovers weird things are happening, but can’t explain it. The uncle finally admits that the house is haunted, sort of. It turns out Jack Black’s character is a warlock, a guy witch. The back story kind of takes us through this winding path of how Black’s character moved into the house after the previous owner died in a mysterious circumstances and left a doomsday clock in the walls. The movie builds up and up and the kid accidentally raises the dead warlock who lived in the house before and has to find a way to defeat him.

For the most part, this felt like a kids’ movie. There was some potty humor, and of course, Cate Blanchett is always wonderful.  The overall story was complete by the end, but it didn’t entice me to read the books. And quite frankly, it didn’t keep my interest, but I did have a bucket of popcorn. For a kids’ movie, it was good. If you’ve got an inquisitive kid, then yes, go see it. But if you’re an adult, I’m not sure this is for you.

While the story is set in the 1950s in Michigan, one can’t expect any diversity. There were maybe two people of color and three women. Cate Blanchett didn’t have her magic totally under control and the other woman was evil, leaving the last one as a girl in the kid’s school. It felt a tad messy. I have to admit, this failed my Hina test.

Movie Review: Avengers Infinity War

Well, after 10 years and a ton of movies, the penultimate movie has supposedly come out. I should warn, there will be SPOILERS ahead. We were told the stakes would be high, but are they? I finally watched Doctor Strange over the weekend and you know, he has the time stone, a magical element that he can use to manipulate time, undo whatever has happened in the past. Imagine how helpful that would be if something awful happened, to say, all, or half, of our favorite characters. The movie starts of where Thor Ragnorok ended, and we are aboard the ship of what is left of Asgard. Loki is on his knees, pleading with Thanos about not killing Thor, not wanting to give up the Tesseract (another infinity stone) – if you missed it, there are 6 magical stones, the big bad, Thanos, has one, as far as we know, but gets the second from Loki, who stole it before Asgard fell. The ship they’re on gets destroyed and that’s how Thor ends up with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Hemdall, Idras Elba, gets Hulk off of the ship, back to NYC and he lands in Doctor Strange’s sanctum. And this is the first time Banner is back, and he isn’t the Hulk and we don’t see the Hulk throughout the movie. I don’t want to skip over anything, but the story with Vision I found very annoying. And his love story with the Scarlett Witch bored me. I know that sounds bad, especially because he has the infinity stone in his head, and it’ll likely cost him his life. But I’m going to change gears.

For several movies we’ve heard nothing but fear and anxiety about Thanos. This movie finally gives us a glimpse into some of his origins. It doesn’t delve deeply enough, into what makes him think that he’s right, but we see a flashback of him taking Gamorra from her home world and adopting her, sort of. There is a moment, towards the end of the movie, that Thanos is explaining to Iron Man/Tony Stark, what happened to his home planet, Titan. This, to me, was the most important scene. Thanos says he noticed how wonderful Titan was, how prosperous it was, how overcrowded it was. He said he made a suggestion, or something, to decrease the number of people, to kill off a large group, but not based on wealth or status, just random. That encapsulates the ending. As you expect, Thanos gets all of the stones, has the completed gauntlet and does exactly what he says he’s going to do. And poof, like that, half the heroes are gone. But not any of the original Avengers, not they’re all fine. And that’s what makes this so empty. The can kill of Black Panther or Spidey, but we know they have more movies coming out, so we know they’re going to be fine. So what have we been waiting for, really? I’m not sure.