Thoughts on 12 Monkeys (1995)

Image courtesy of IMDb

Hello, everyone. In my previous post, I provided an update on the changes that had to be made to the schedule due to current events. I have since had to amend it with further updates, the first of which I closed out by hinting at the possibility of surprise reviews in between that I ultimately decided to add to the list.

The subject of this review is one such occasion.

Given the circumstances, I decided to start catching up by seeing what was On Demand for free. I saw that they had just added this one, so I figured I’d start here.

Clearly by total coincidence, I picked a movie that focuses on a virus.

There’s actually more to it than that. It’s not just about a virus, but it’s also about someone trying to prevent the outbreak before it happens, so it’s made more interesting with a time travel aspect added to the plot.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present my review of the sci-fi thriller 12 Monkeys.

The story is set in 2035. The majority of the human race had been decimated by a plague in 1996, and those that remained had no choice but to go underground in order to survive. The ones responsible for the chaos are believed to be part of a group called the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. In the present, a prisoner named James Cole is chosen to be sent back to 1996 to not only locate the virus, but also provide information that could prove vital in developing a cure.

Initially, he is sent back too early, arriving in 1990. Upon being arrested and put in a mental hospital under the care of Dr. Kathryn Railly, he also meets fellow patient Jeffrey Goines, who has a very radical outlook on certain aspects of society.

Upon being brought back and giving the scientists the information he gathered, Cole is then sent to the correct time. When he arrives, however, he slowly discovers that Dr. Railly and Jeffrey each play an important part in the events that are about to transpire.

What Worked: First of all, the acting is fantastic in this movie.

Bruce Willis gives one of his best performances as James Cole, showing that he can play a more serious role outside of his action hero persona. He had that in Unbreakable, but even more so here.

Madeleine Stowe (The Last of the Mohicans) is really good as Dr. Railly, playing off of him very well. She shows commitment to helping him when we first meet her, and then gradually comes to realize what’s at stake when he needs her help.

David Morse (who, following this, would be in another movie I intend to cover very soon) plays a character named Dr. Peters, who we’re first introduced to in 1996 when we see Dr. Railly again. He’s not in it that much, but the scenes he is in I recommend keeping in mind, particularly that scene.

Christopher Plummer also has a small role in this as Dr. Leland Goines, Jeffrey’s father and a virologist.

I saved the best for last for a reason. He also ends up being very crucial to the plot in ways that I won’t get into. The best performance in the movie for me was actually Brad Pitt as Jeffrey himself. When he first showed up in the mental hospital, from that moment on, I loved him in this.

Not only does Bruce Willis give one of his best performances, but also Brad Pitt gives one of his. He is excellent in this movie. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and he may not have won, but he at least deserved that nomination.

The great performances are accompanied by a smart script from duo David and Janet Peoples. David in particular has done some pretty well known work, having also written Unforgiven and co-written Blade Runner.

What really makes this movie as unique as it is comes in three aspects. The first is the score from composer Paul Buckmaster. Although he didn’t do much in the way of film composing, he was very prominent in the music industry nonetheless, having worked with the likes of David Bowie and Elton John, along with numerous others. Even so, he brings a very distinct style to his score here. It sounds like something out of a French movie. Now, this may seem baffling at first. However, once you see that this was inspired by the 1962 French short titled La Jetée (or “The Jetty”*), it makes sense, as it feels like it’s their way of honoring the source material in some capacity other than acknowledging it in the opening credits.

The second aspect is Roger Pratt’s gorgeous cinematography. He frequently collaborates with director Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame), and it shows, because their particular visual techniques complement each other perfectly. Outside of working with Terry Gilliam, he has also shot such films as Tim Burton’s Batman, Troy, and two installments of Harry Potter (those being Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire).

The third aspect is the production design. This movie cost nearly 30 million dollars, and it looks like it was more in the range of 40-50 million. I similarly praised Underwater for this in my review. Whenever a movie looks like it cost more than it actually did, that’s never a bad thing for me. I give credit where credit is due if they manage to pull it off by creating something that impressive with the very modest amount given to them. Underwater was one such example, as is this, and there are plenty of others, one of which is another 2020 release that will be covered in the near future.

The biggest praise I can give to this is how they approach time travel here. Instead of trying to change the past, the protagonist is merely observing it in order to help make a better future. I thought that was very clever.

It also benefits the story structure, because it makes you want to see what happens next even more. It all culminates in a brilliant twist, and that alone is something you need to see for yourself.

At first I thought I predicted how it would play out, having been accustomed to how it’s been done in other time travel stories. Then I realized that there had been details leading up to it which are very easy to overlook.

This is one of those movies that upon first viewing, you may have some questions about certain things. With multiple viewings, you might actually catch some of those details you initially missed. Once you’ve pieced everything together, though, you see how shocking the twist really is.

What Didn’t Work: My only flaw is that there are a couple pacing issues. It’s a little slow in the first act, but then it picks up once Cole is brought back to 2035 and sent to the correct time and the second act begins. Shortly after the second act begins, there’s another pacing issue, but then after a few minutes, it picks back up again and doesn’t stop.

Overall: 12 Monkeys is an excellent sci-fi thriller with equally excellent performances (particularly from Bruce Willis and especially Brad Pitt), a captivating and thought provoking story, and a fantastic variation on the time travel formula with a unique visual style to accompany it. Although it does center around a virus, it’s not so much an outbreak movie with time travel in it as it is the other way around. Rather than showing the cause and effects of the virus or even the aftermath, it focuses more on trying to prevent it, which also makes it a clever variation on the genre of outbreak movies by having it be a “What If?” scenario.

In saying that, it’s both straightforward and complex at the same time. The plot is easy to follow, but how it unfolds requires your utmost attention.

It may take multiple viewings, but it rightfully earns its rewatchability because on the first viewing alone it’s as great as it is, and then it gets even better upon revisiting it.

Regardless of whether you’re viewing it for the first time or revisiting it, it’s always entertaining from start to finish, and will stick with you long afterwards.

*As for what a jetty is, it’s part of a building that ties to a certain character trait given to James Cole. All I can say is this building ultimately ends up having major significance throughout the movie. In fact, it’s one of the key elements of the short that inspired its use in this movie, so it actually factors heavily into both of them.

Schedule Update

Image courtesy of hipwallpaper.com

The preceding image is for use until I have a proper logo for non-review posts on the site, upon which it will be adjusted to that.

Hello, everyone. I am aware that it’s been a few weeks since the Underwater review, but I have decided to change the original plan a little bit to make some of the newer reviews come sooner so you are still being given some new content. Unfortunately, given how the events of the past several days have affected the world of entertainment, I have to make changes anyway.

Several movies that I had been looking forward to reviewing for you have been delayed due to the events of the coronavirus pandemic that continues to spread as we speak. I will recap the original plans for them so you know some of what’s been delayed.

The first planned reviews I mentioned were of every DC Extended Universe movie up to this point. The series consists of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Aquaman, and Shazam!. At the time of the original post being made, Shazam! was the most recent release. As mentioned there, I had originally intended to do it for Birds of Prey, but it has now been included in this series of reviews before the release of Wonder Woman 1984. This was for two reasons:

1: It ensures I have more time to cover these properly rather than rush them out just to be sure I’m able to see it as soon as I can.

And 2: It was also because of what I had thought might be best to start with, which was one of the longest-running film franchises ever.

Even if Wonder Woman 1984 is delayed, this plan will hold, and in the event that it is indeed delayed, that, too, will be included for when the next installment, The Batman, arrives next year.

The aforementioned long-running franchise is of course the James Bond franchise. The plan is still to cover the previous ones, from Dr. No all the way up to Spectre. There are benefits to this one, which is really the only case in regards to all the delays announced so far. We do have a new date, and it is still coming out this year. Around Thanksgiving, we can expect to see James Bond in action with No Time to Die. Plus, this may ultimately prove to be the right call, as Bond has done pretty well opening in November anyway, compared to the second weekend of April as originally scheduled.

Following that delay, there was one delayed almost a whole year, but since it’s the biggest one by far, I’ll go over that one last.

The next delay that happened was a movie that was going to come out in just under a week at the time of this writing, which was A Quiet Place Part II. The only thing we know so far is that it is still scheduled for later this year. As for when, no new date has been set for that or any of the others I am about to mention, which were originally scheduled to open as far out as just around a month later.

Then we get to the three most recent delays for other well known movies. The first was supposed to come out at the end of this month, which was the remake of Mulan. However, considering how big it was going to be, particularly in China, it was inevitable that this would happen.

The one that surprised me was Antlers, a new horror movie produced by Guillermo Del Toro. That was set to come out around this time next month. I did not think they would pull that.

The one that didn’t surprise me, because it’s been delayed before, was The New Mutants, which is something I’ve really been looking forward to. It was so close to coming out this time, too, having been set to open the weekend after Mulan. This is the one that I really hope they find a date for within the rest of the year so it can finally come out, and I can finally see it and review it for you. Of course, I still hope it’s good, and it looks like it will be, as the newer footage that’s been released of it certainly shows promise that it hopefully lives up to. Although the reason for it being delayed (which is hopefully the last) is understandable this time, it still disappoints me that they had to delay it again. There are so many reasons why I hope this overcomes its unfortunate reputation that they deserve a post of their own.

For now, though, it all comes down to this: I hope it comes out so it can help the Fox era of X-Men movies go out with some dignity and allow us to have even more hope for when the characters we know and love make their Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. There is something else pertaining to that franchise, but first, I’ll go over the biggest delay.

The biggest delay came after the announcement for No Time to Die. I had originally stated that the reviews for this franchise would most likely happen this year, but would be a certainty for next year if they didn’t, as that was supposedly when it would end. Now, it sounds like it’s no longer the case, as the latest installment of the main series was delayed by close to a year. These reviews would be for the Fast and the Furious franchise (or The Fast Saga, as it’s apparently called now), because the ninth main installment, titled F9, would have come out towards the end of May. This and No Time to Die are the only movies that were delayed but had new dates planned. Since this has been bumped to next April (when the supposed final installment in the main series was set to come out), we’ll have to wait for that finale a little bit longer, too.

These delays most likely will not be the last. In the days and weeks to come, there are guaranteed to be more.

What makes these delays worse is that since most, if not all, of these movies might end up being bumped to (at the very latest) the fall and winter season, some of the ones that had been scheduled will be pushed back to sometime next year just to accommodate these.

On a side note, for the time being, Onward will probably be my last review of a newly released movie until this whole situation is under control. The main reason I say that is because theaters have been closing down with all of these delays happening, and it won’t be long before it affects every theater in America, including the ones in my area. I was hoping to have my last review of a new release be for Bloodshot, but as it is right now, Onward is still the most recent movie I was able to see in theaters. I do still plan on seeing Bloodshot, of course, but it likely won’t be in theaters. Once this situation has improved enough, I will get back to newer releases as soon as I can. In the meantime, I can catch up with ones I haven’t gotten to yet, and I have quite a few. There are even some that I had planned for this year that won’t be affected by this situation at all.

I’ll get to the ones that can still be expected first.

The DC Extended Universe reviews, from Man of Steel up to Birds of Prey (or up to Wonder Woman 1984, provided it’s not delayed first).

The Bond franchise, from Dr. No up to Spectre, since I now have more time to do this one.

A Quiet Place, which is long overdue anyway.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Catch-Up Reviews, from Avengers: Infinity War up to Spider-Man: Far From Home. Hopefully, Phase Four still kicks off this year with the releases of both Black Widow and The Eternals.

These ones can now be added to the list:

The Fast Saga up to this point, from the original up to Hobbs & Shaw (and yes, even though it’s a spin-off, it’s still part of the franchise, so I’m counting it).

I can officially announce a review of the original Mulan is coming, despite being among those I wanted to be a surprise, alongside a review of the remake.

The X-Men franchise can be added as well, which goes from the original up to Dark Phoenix (and yes, I am including both Deadpool movies).

Numerous other catch-up reviews, as well as some very special reviews.

With our current situation being bleak and dire, and the current output of new offerings looking barren, as new content gets put out here, there is one thing we can do.

The best we can do is hope and pray that the release schedule for the rest of the year can at least somewhat be saved. Even with that, at the moment, it’ll be a miracle if it can, folks.

That being said, no matter which review comes next, I’ll see you there.

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UPDATE #1 (March 26th, 2020): Since this post’s upload, both Black Widow and Wonder Woman 1984 have been delayed. Unfortunately, no new release date has been set for Black Widow. Although it’ll more than likely still come out later this year, this means that The Eternals will possibly get bumped to around this time next year at the earliest. Thus, this also means that the rest of Marvel Studios’ entire slate for Phase Four, and possibly even beyond that, depending on how long this crisis persists, will be affected. It’s not just the movies that’ll be affected, either. Their first few shows for Disney+ have been postponed, too.

However, there is a bright spot to these two announcements: Wonder Woman 1984 did receive a new release date, which ended up not being as far out as I thought. I thought it would have been bumped similarly to No Time to Die, if not F9. It turns out that was actually not the case. It was only bumped back a couple months. Instead of the first weekend of June as originally planned, it has been bumped to the middle of August. The wait may be a little bit longer, but it’s not by that much.

So as I said when mentioning Birds of Prey, the plan still holds. I will cover it prior to this.

If need be, I will be providing further updates if they affect the schedule in any way.

On a side note, pretty much the majority of theaters across America have been closed down, save for maybe drive-ins in a couple areas. Among that majority of theater closures for the time being are indeed the theaters in my area, which didn’t surprise me, because it was inevitable.

However, as stated in the original post, I do have a plan in place during this time. Once everything is back to normal (or at least as close to that as it was), the same case will apply to the schedule. There might even be some surprise reviews in between that were not originally planned that I later ended up deciding to add.

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UPDATE #2 (April 4th, 2020): Over the course of the past week, since the previous update, several more movies have been delayed, and some of the ones that were previously delayed have now found new dates.

This means my reviews of both the original Mulan and the remake are not the only reviews I intended to keep a surprise until I uploaded them.

Therefore, now I have to spoil even more surprises, only this time, it’s beyond my control. At least in the reviews themselves, I am capable of trying my best to do them with as few spoilers as possible. Since this is a schedule for reviews to come, though (which more than likely will have no surprises left in regards to new releases by the time this is all over), the only thing I can do is adjust my schedule to match the actual one.

Now, without further ado, let’s dive into the biggest announcements as we did last time. I’m going by the original list of what I had planned based on the schedule as it was before all of this went down to keep it consistent.

The first on the list was actually one of the first to be delayed, but has now found a new date. This one is A Quiet Place Part II. Originally, it was scheduled to come out just under a week after the original post was made. It has now been rescheduled for Labor Day weekend. Even though I have plenty of time to review the first one anyway, I’ve decided when to upload that review. I plan on it being at least sometime this month, but a perfect time would be within the next few days to match the timeframe of both when the first one came out and when the sequel was set to come out.

The next one is Mulan. As mentioned in the original post, that was supposed to come out the week after A Quiet Place Part II. With this latest update coming more than a week after its initial release date, a new one has been announced. Mulan is now slated to open towards the end of July.

It was actually among the most recent bunch of delays, which come from Disney. Also among them was a new release date for Black Widow.

Originally scheduled to open at the beginning of May, Black Widow has been moved to the November spot previously occupied by Eternals. I stated in the previous update that should this indeed happen, the latter would possibly get bumped to the beginning of next year at the earliest. That also meant that the rest of the entire slate of Phase Four would be affected, and I was right. The way in which that would happen I also predicted: Each movie following Eternals would take the date originally occupied by the one that followed it. Basically, a domino effect happened here.

Several of the new dates announced by Disney were for those, in fact. There were some others, but the only huge one worth noting outside of them was Mulan.

Another huge one that has been highly anticipated is Top Gun: Maverick. I can now announce plans for a review of the original alongside this one. This one was delayed, but also given a new date. Instead of close to the Fourth of July, it’s now opening close to Christmas.

In the “Schedule Adjustment” post I made at the beginning of the year, I mentioned Ghostbusters as a possibility. I can now fit that series in, as Ghostbusters: Afterlife has been bumped from mid-July to early March of next year.

There were more than just these (and there will continue to be more), of course, but some I can still keep a surprise.

Plus, there were some others I mentioned in the original post that had been delayed, but as of this update, no new dates have been set for them.

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UPDATE #3 (June 27th, 2020): A couple months have passed since the last update, and everything seemed to be smoothening out. We had some delays here and there, but nothing really worth noting for another update… until now. I’ll start with the one that was the deciding factor for me on whether or not to do another one. If it happened, I’d feel I would then have enough material. If it didn’t, I probably wouldn’t. I’m also starting with the most recent ones, as these were just announced earlier this week.

Shockingly, this one is the least bad of the bunch for this update, as it was only pushed back by a few weeks. That would be my most anticipated movie of the entire year (as I established in the original schedule): Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. This was originally set to come out on July 17th, but was then bumped back two weeks to July 31st. Then a couple days ago, it was bumped by almost another two weeks. At the time of this update, it is now set for release on August 12th, a Wednesday. This is probably to give it more of an advantage to hopefully do well.

Now we get to the ones that have not only made things worse, but also more confusing for everyone, especially me, despite my best efforts to piece everything together for you.

One of the other most recent ones is actually Wonder Woman 1984. A lot of you may be wondering why this one is being mentioned here when I already covered it in a previous update. Yes, folks, this one was indeed delayed again as well. It is now set for release on October 2nd.

The most recent one that’s noteworthy was set to come out on November 20th, which up until now had it set to open against Pixar’s latest movie Soul (currently set to open that same day) and No Time to Die, the new James Bond movie (which was set to open five days later). It has now been bumped to towards the end of May.

That would be the culmination of the MonsterVerse so far (and hopefully, there are more after this, because I for one have really liked all of the previous entries), a new Clash of the Titans, if you will… known as Godzilla vs. Kong. I’m actually fine with this one, for two reasons:

1: I was somewhat expecting it.

And 2: May is a better spot for it anyway, because had this stayed in November, both of the aforementioned movies would have more than likely crushed it.

Speaking of which, what was more concerning for me and now even more so, was where they originally placed Tenet. Its original date was a week before Mulan’s first rescheduled date. Then Tenet was set for the week right after it. Here’s why: There was always a possibility Mulan would annihilate it either way.

Then around the same time Tenet was moved, Mulan followed. As mentioned earlier, Tenet was slated for the 17th, with Mulan set to open the following week. Then Tenet was moved to the week after Mulan, which still hadn’t moved yet.

This resulted in Wonder Woman 1984 having to be bumped again, but I’ll get back to that in a second.

Now Mulan is set to open after Tenet again. However, there is a bit of breathing room in between this time. Mulan is set for August 21st.

A newer one, which is one of two surprises I now have to spoil (again; thanks a lot, COVID, for making me spoil my plans!), would be Bill & Ted Face the Music.

Up until recently, that was one of the few movies left that had not been affected, as it was scheduled to open towards the end of the summer, on August 21st, which of course would have placed it against Mulan. They then bumped it up a week to August 14th, which was where Wonder Woman 1984 had been slated to open upon being moved from June.

However, when that was moved to October, they put Bill & Ted there. Then with the new date for Tenet, they bumped it back to August 28th to avoid competition with it.

Thus, another surprise I had planned was reviewing Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey to prepare for this one.

I considered mentioning one that had also been moved to that date a few months ago, but with how everything’s going right now, I don’t want to end up getting everyone excited for something that could very well be delayed yet again. All I’ll say is this in regards to that one: I still want to see it and hopefully be able to own it to complete my collection for that particular series.

With that out of the way, and having established that it’s not that one (since I was planning on covering that series anyway; I still won’t mention the name, but some of you may have figured it out since I mentioned it in the original update), I unfortunately have to mention one that kind of broke my heart, because it was part of my childhood.

Oddly enough, both of these surprises feature Keanu Reeves, except in this one, he has a smaller part. With how they decided to approach this one, Tenet being moved may have been what made me decide whether or not to provide a further update, but the way they decided to handle this one is actually what solidified it for me. This is the one that made me feel I had enough material to do one.

For those who are very nostalgic for a particular Nickelodeon cartoon, like myself (something about a pineapple under the sea…), you may have been looking forward to heading out to the theater a third time to see him on the big screen again.

I was hoping to, because I had done so for the first two movies. The animation style they decided to go with for this one had me interested, and then a few weeks ago, I heard that the director of this one (as with the director of the second one) was among the original writers for the show. In other words, he gave the fans some of the most quotable lines in numerous iconic episodes.

It gave me a little bit of hope, since it felt like they knew the source material, so I was genuinely looking forward to this, because it’s always nice to look back on fond memories of something you grew up on.

Folks… we are still getting the movie, don’t worry. However, it still hurts that I have to disappoint you with how we’re getting it.

This sort of thing is nothing new, as it’s happened with several others, but this is the first time I’ve felt it was worth mentioning. This is the latest movie to have its theatrical release cancelled, and be put on streaming instead.

The subtitle has a whole new meaning, then, because The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is no longer coming to theaters. Instead, it will be put on VOD and CBS All Access early next year.

Hopefully, it’ll eventually find its way to home media, as most of the others put on streaming ultimately did. Even if it doesn’t mean a Blu-Ray release (as much as I’d love that), if I have to resort to Digital, then I’ll take it.

The best I can say about that one is that at least we’re still getting the movie.

Since we have to wait a little bit longer, there is something positive that came out of this: The same week this announcement was made, the remaster of Battle for Bikini Bottom (the best, and possibly definitive, SpongeBob game) also came out. So for those who want to relive their childhood, particularly that part of it, you at least have that to hold you over.

If any further announcements and delays are made, and they more than likely will be at this point, I will gladly provide the updates.

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UPDATE #4 (July 25th, 2020):

Well… it’s happened, folks. Even more delays have occurred, a couple even being pulled indefinitely until they know when it’s safer to put them out.

I’ll just say a couple things before we get started in going over this new batch.

The first is that I will do a separate post where I go over the list of every delay that has happened so far, including those that were not originally scheduled to come out for at least another year. Besides, there might be some who are interested in hearing what might have been delayed beyond next year. I am also planning on doing another one going over one particular movie that was delayed even before the pandemic started, but its status at the moment I felt it’s probably best that I save for that.

All I’ll say is this: I’ll be doing something a little different with this one.

The second is that at least a couple of the ones I will be going over in this update are sequels to which I’ve already covered everything I needed to that came before. I’ll get to those momentarily.

With that out of the way, let’s go over these.

I’ll start with the ones that I’m sure will infuriate quite a few of you if they haven’t already. These two were delayed indefinitely. There are so many people I know who have been looking forward to them.

The moment this first one was announced to have been pulled indefinitely, I had a feeling I would end up having enough material for another update. Flash forward to now, and evidenced by the fact that I’m doing one, I was right.

This was my Most Anticipated of the entire year, and now it might end up dethroning The Batman as my Most Anticipated of 2021*, if the pandemic persists hard enough to where they end up being unable to release it before the end of 2020.

If you’ve been following these updates, and recently saw my review of The Prestige, you would know that it was Tenet. As mentioned earlier, this was originally set to come out just last week. Then I mentioned in the previous update that it was bumped back twice, first to the 31st, and then again to August 12th. Now it has been pulled indefinitely.

I believe other than the pandemic, there’s another reason why they decided to pull this one: The movie that was bumped to around this time. It was originally scheduled to open towards the end of March, but then after Tenet was delayed, this one followed. At the time, Tenet was still set to open on the 17th. This one was delayed to the week after it (meaning it would have opened this weekend, and more than likely crushed Tenet).

Then Tenet was delayed to the week after it, in which case it still probably would have been overwhelmed by this one, as at the time it had not moved yet.

Then they were bumped to just a few days apart in August: Tenet on the 12th, and this one on the 21st.

Now, this, too, has been pulled indefinitely. That would be the remake of Mulan.

As for the ones that have been delayed to next year, I’ll start with one of the first to be delayed because of the pandemic. That would be A Quiet Place Part II. Originally set to open a few days following the upload of the original post back in March, it was rescheduled for Labor Day weekend a few weeks later. Earlier this week, however, it was bumped back to April of 2021, which is around the time the original came out.

There’s one that up until now had not been affected, and it would have come out the week after A Quiet Place Part II. Originally set for September 11th, this has now been rescheduled for June 4th, 2021. This does give me more time to cover everything that came before, though, so there is that.

It’s another horror sequel, ironically enough, and that would be The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It**. It does make sense why they would put it there, however, as the first two Conjuring movies came out during the summer anyway.

A couple more horror sequels were delayed. The first one is Halloween Kills, the sequel to the 2018 film, which in turn was a direct sequel to the 1978 original. As you would probably expect, this one was supposed to open this October, but was bumped to next October (and by extension, the sequel to this one, Halloween Ends, was bumped back to the following year). However, another one took its place.

Originally set for release on June 12th, but then bumped to September 25th before being bumped back three weeks to October 16th, which was the original date for Halloween Kills, we have Candyman.

This one, oddly enough, shares the same name as the original, much like Halloween did. It also takes the same approach as Halloween by being a direct sequel, despite being a further installment in the franchise.

The delay for Candyman is actually one of the few to be mentioned on this one that are the least bad. There are a couple more positive things, but I’ll get to that in a second.

Now for the latest ones that are not horror movies. Another one that’s not too bad is Death on the Nile, which was bumped back a couple weeks from October 9th to October 23rd.

The biggest one to note is another one that was delayed a few months. It took a similar approach as A Quiet Place Part II by going back around to the time it was supposed to come out. This one was originally scheduled for June 26th of this year, but then was bumped close to Christmas, only to just recently be bumped back to near the Fourth of July again.

The highly-anticipated sequel Top Gun: Maverick has been moved to July 2nd of next year, which was actually partially due to a different reason than you may think. I will go more into that in the post about the delays themselves.

One more thing, and this is a rather interesting approach, especially for a sequel that people have wanted for so long. This one is Bill & Ted Face the Music. It was previously slated for August 28th, but was bumped back a few days to September 1st, and this is how they’re doing it with this one. They’re releasing it in select theaters (as there are a few that are open) and on VOD that same day. That’s probably the best way to see if it’s safe for people to slowly start flocking back out to the theaters once again. They take a movie that isn’t huge like Tenet, Mulan or even Top Gun, but people are still looking forward to it nonetheless, and try that with it.

I wanted to end this one on a slightly brighter note, so here we go.

Another one of the first to be delayed was another horror movie, Antlers. Up until recently, it had not received a new date. Now it does have one. We can expect to see it in February, which I for one am happy about, because I’ve been looking forward to this.

I’ll also have a few less reviews to do with some of these, and here’s why: I’ll ultimately have already covered what I needed to prior to them.

Even at least one that will be mentioned in the upcoming post applies to this.

There are three among the ones mentioned at the time of this writing, with more likely to follow sometime later.

The three that apply are:

A Quiet Place Part II (as I reviewed the first one earlier this year)

Halloween Kills (I reviewed the original and the 2018 sequel when the latter came out)

and Death on the Nile (I have reviewed Murder on the Orient Express).

So if there’s one good thing to take away from this update, folks, it’s that for once, I am actually free to review some newer movies when they’re released.

Even with that having been said, I will provide further updates when necessary (not if… when), and be on the lookout for the couple other posts to come later.

If the pandemic’s not over, you can guarantee that these updates are not over.

*Apologies for having to spoil that, by the way, but blame COVID for that, not me.

**Why they couldn’t just call it The Conjuring 3, I have no idea. If they were going to use a subtitle, it could have used some work. The same can be said for another sequel that I didn’t originally mention, but I digress.

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UPDATE #5 (September 5th, 2020):

Another day, another update, folks.

With the previous update coming nearly a week after uploading the Tremors review, I have some more news in regards to schedule changes, both for my own and for the release slate itself.

Some good, some bad, and some in between.

I won’t just start with the bad news this time. I’ll be going into the worst of the worst, and go up from there.

So two updates ago, I mentioned that The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run was no longer coming to theaters. This actually applies to the US. The streaming plans for it here are still happening, but it does still have a theatrical release somewhere, as it recently opened in Canada. Not only that, but there’s also this: A mere ten days before the last update was made, Netflix acquired the international distribution rights outside of three territories: The US, Canada, and China.

A similar thing happened to another movie, and at first, I felt it was actually worse up until some new information about it came to my attention just a couple days ago, which I will get to in a moment.

Mulan is now being shown in some areas where theaters are open, China being one of them.

America has also now received it, but on Disney+. The reason why I initially thought this was even worse was because it would be available for those who are both subscribed and willing to pay an extra 30 bucks to watch it through Premier Access.

A lot of people were not happy to hear this, myself included, and for good reason. Then just a couple days ago, some more news came out about it. It turns out this is temporary, as it’s only set to go through November. Once that time is up, it’ll be available for everyone in December for free, so the only thing you’ll be having to pay for is the service itself.

A lot of people are jumping at the chance to watch it now, which I understand, because they were as interested in this as I was. As for me personally, I actually feel waiting is a better idea, because on top of saving 30 bucks, I still get a chance to see the movie regardless. They stated this is supposed to be a one-off thing, so let’s just hope they meant it.

There is another positive to Mulan ultimately being sent to streaming instead of in theaters: They no longer have to risk directly competing with Tenet in theaters yet again.

Speaking of which, now we start getting to the good news. In between the previous update and this one, a plan was ultimately put in place for Tenet. Early screenings were held from August 31st through September 2nd, and then the release itself followed on September 3rd.

September 3rd also had some significance for me, because up until then, two of the three theaters in my area had opened back up.* Now the moment has come where I can finally say this.

I did not think I’d be able to do so before the end of the year... but this is one of those times where I’m glad I was wrong for once.

Folks… I have all my theaters back now… and I could not be happier. If you either follow the site (particularly these updates), know me in general, or both, you have a pretty good idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.

The first one to reopen was my local Regal just a little over two weeks ago. I took full advantage of celebrating it by seeing the first new movie to open in six months. I am working on the review right now as we speak, along with several others, but I might start with that.

Not long after that, one of the other two theaters in town had reopened, and now both of them are back in business, and I can get back to reviewing new releases again.

In the previous update, I mentioned doing two separate posts, one going over every delay we’ve had thus far, and one going over one particular movie that had faced several delays well before the pandemic for numerous reasons. In fact, only the last delay was due to the pandemic.

I held off on revealing what it was because I didn’t want to hold out hope for it, only for it to be delayed yet again.

The date held this time, and it has finally been released, so I can say this: I won’t have to do the latter post now. I’ll go over the delays in the review.

However, while I plan on seeing it within the next couple days or so, I have to go by one of my rules before I can review it. Whenever a new release is part of a franchise, I feel like it’s best to have covered everything that came before in order to provide a proper context.

There are a couple more I have planned to see, so I will go into at least one in the next update, so stay tuned for that.

*Technically, four, but the other one is a dollar theater for movies that are on their way out before they hit home media, and that’s usually a last resort for me (plus, that one is the only one in my area that is still closed anyway). The three I’m mentioning here I’ve been waiting to reopen because I usually go as soon as I can the moment a movie I’m interested in is released.

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UPDATE #6 (September 25th, 2020):

Well… this was unexpected. I’m having to do two updates in the span of a month. There have been more delays that happened in between, folks.

Before we get to that, however, I do have some good news. I have seen three movies since the previous update.

The first one came the day it went up.

This is the first time in as long as I can remember where I was equally looking forward to both seeing the movie itself and doing the review of it, and for those who have been following these updates especially, you’ll probably know what it is.

The second I saw a few days later. I hinted at it in the previous update, even though everyone probably already knows what that one is, too.

The third was one of the surprises I had to spoil back in Update #3. The first of these three is an original movie, while the other two are both new entries in a franchise, so I still have to follow my franchise rule for them.

Now on to the new delays.

We’ve had quite a few on this one, folks, as they’ve started picking back up again.

There was one that happened just last week, and we were so close to receiving another new release. They first pulled this with A Quiet Place Part II when they initially delayed it a few days before its original release date back in March.

Since it has now happened again, I’m starting with this one. The new Gerard Butler movie, the disaster film Greenland, we would have received this weekend.

The reason we didn’t is because they bumped it before we could. It’s now been bumped to Winter of this year, with a new date currently unspecified, as this is now the fourth time it’s been delayed.

Speaking of unspecified, there was one set for this weekend, but had been bumped prior. Oddly enough, it’s been the fourth time here as well, which is one short of how many times you say his name before he appears.

That’s right, folks. Candyman has been delayed again… and I had actually watched the original again for both my review of it and to prepare for this one, too. This has been moved to next year, with no specific date announced yet here, either.

To make matters even worse, there are more we were so close to getting, and I’ll start with the one that was set to open following Greenland. This one would have come out next week. It’s been delayed a couple times already. That would be Wonder Woman 1984, which has now been bumped back to Christmas Day.

That’s good for it that it still gets released this year (for now). However, this creates a problem: Warner Bros. is now more or less competing against themselves, as they have had Dune set for the week of December 18th. I have predicted pretty much since Day One that that movie would likely get bumped, and as much as they plan to keep it there (which they do, by the way), they’re going to have to bump it if they want it to have a chance, and if they want to be able to make the second part.*

This is especially true now, since another movie was recently bumped back to its spot. This one was originally set to open the week of October 9th, and then was bumped back a couple weeks to the 23rd, as mentioned in Update #4. That would be Death on the Nile, which now gives Dune competition again. The first time it didn’t seem like too much of a problem, but then Top Gun: Maverick was bumped back to around Christmas before that was bumped back again to pretty much its original placement, just a year later.

As for what was originally placed near Dune, that would be Steven Spielberg’s latest project: His version of West Side Story. This has been bumped back by almost a year, to next December (only a week off from its original date).

So for those who still have nightmares about Cats, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer before you can get rid of them. I’m just going to move on from that so I am not deemed liable for any potential PTSD flashbacks from any poor souls out there who sat through it so I don’t have to.

Speaking of nightmares, we get to the biggest one of this new batch. I thought the domino effect from last time was bad… this time was worse, because we also had a date swap.

The entire slate of movies in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been moved further out. With shows set in said universe, that’s a different story. We are still getting one of them this year, but more on that in a moment.

As a fair amount of you may be well aware of by now, Black Widow was set to kick this Phase off back on May 1st, before being bumped to November 6th. It has now been bumped back to May 7th, 2021. It’s still set as the first entry of Phase Four, but then this is where the date swap also comes in. The original plan was to have Eternals follow that up, with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in turn following that.

When the pandemic first hit, Eternals was set for November 6th, with Shang-Chi to follow on February 12th to coincide with the first day of the Chinese New Year (keep that date in mind, folks). Then when Black Widow was moved, everything else followed suit. Then just recently, it happened again, except this time, Black Widow has the May date that Shang-Chi had. That movie is now set for July, but now Eternals is following it, having been scheduled for next November.

In other words, 2020 will be the first year since 2009 with no new installment in the MCU arriving in theaters (Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk kicked it off in 2008, but it wouldn’t be until 2010 onwards that we’d get at least one a year, starting that summer with Iron Man 2).

I’m going to try to end this one on a more positive note.

We are still getting something in February, as it turns out. The King’s Man, the latest installment in the Kingsman franchise, was bumped back once again a couple weeks ago to February 26th, but then something good happened. They bumped it up a couple weeks to February 12th (see?), so we might just have something to do for Valentine’s Day Weekend.

In regards to the Disney ones, none of the aforementioned MCU films were announced as going straight to Disney+ instead. Thus, it seems they not only stated the Premier Access experiment with Mulan would be a one-off thing, but they actually kept their word.

We are still set to get at least one Disney movie before the end of the year, that being the other Pixar film this year, Soul, which was confirmed to still have a theatrical release on November 20th as planned.

Although Black Widow was bumped out, leaving us without an MCU movie for this year, we are still getting one of the Disney+ shows this year, with WandaVision set for a debut in December.

So even though fans of that franchise, especially huge ones like myself, won’t be able to get their fix for the year in the way they hoped with at least one movie and maybe a show, at least we’re still getting something with that.

Now for the one to cap this one off. If there is one good thing that we’ve known all year we would certainly be getting, that would be Season 2 of The Mandalorian, which starts in just a few weeks.

Thus, I can announce something new to come in terms of reviews. Though my main focus is of course on movies, I never left shows out of the question, and in fact I had been considering it for some time.

I can announce the first one I plan to cover, and I knew from the moment I finished it that I would want to start here.

I have of course decided to start with Season 1 of The Mandalorian. As for when the review of Season 1 will be up, I don’t know. I just felt it was more important to announce it anyway.

I initially felt like waiting until the shows from Marvel Studios themselves started before I decided to go ahead and expand to TV reviews (since they do tie in with the movies), but then I saw that, and I changed it to that.

Having announced that, I will incorporate them when I can, and do ones that won’t cause me to shift the review schedule around too much, especially when there might be some that I really want to do.

I’ll start with shorter shows first, and maybe somewhere down the line, I’ll expand into longer-running ones.

*For those who don’t know, this new version of Dune is set to be a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novel, with this movie set to cover roughly the first half, and a planned followup to cover the second.

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Update #7 (October 6th, 2020): 

Not even two weeks later, and I already have more material for another update, folks. 

This actually began with the same movie I started with last time, which was Greenland. Five days after the last update (the same day it was originally set for a theatrical release), it was announced that Greenland would be going straight to streaming. Those who happen to have HBO Max, you’ll be receiving it there if you’re in the US, while internationally (namely the UK, Canada, and Australia), those interested can see it if they happen to have Amazon Prime. 

While we’re on the subject of streaming, one movie I was interested in, Run (the followup of Indian-American director Aneesh Chaganty, who made one of my favorite movies of 2018 with Searching) was also moved to a streaming service. It was originally set to open back in May right on time for Mother’s Day Weekend. You’ll be able to finally see it on Hulu starting November 20th. 

The next two are ironically the first two that were affected when all this chaos started: No Time to Die and F9. The former was most recently set to open on November 25th, just in time for Thanksgiving. However, October 1st came and denied us of that yet again, as it was announced that they had decided to bump the movie back to April 2nd, 2021, and then another domino effect happened. 

That slot was originally placed for F9 after being originally scheduled for release back in May. It has now been bumped to May 28th, 2021 in order to give the April slot to No Time to Die. 

Making matters worse is this: The moment they heard that No Time to Die had been bumped back again, Regal decided to close a lot of their locations… including my own. 

It’ll only be a matter of time before my two local theaters are affected as well. 

I’ll close this update out with something that I had predicted pretty much since Day One. I mentioned this last time, too. It had been set for the week before Christmas, but then it had direct competition when Wonder Woman 1984 was moved to Christmas Day, thus making Warner Bros. compete with themselves. 

I had a feeling that they would have to bump it if they wanted it to have a chance of both doing well on its own and doing well enough so they can make the second part. 

And I was right. 

Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll have to wait 10 more months before you can see Dune. It has been bumped to October 1st, 2021. This in turn caused them to bump what was inarguably my Most Anticipated Movie of 2021 out into 2022, a few weeks after they released the trailer promoting a 2021 release date: 

The Batman. 

I’ll be going more into that in the next update, because I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Until the delays stop and everything goes back to normal (or rather as close to normal as it was), the updates will not. 

We might be approaching the point where there’s hardly anything left to come out in 2020, and I’ll have to move on to the second post I hinted at doing back in Update #4. 

Yes, I mentioned originally doing two posts, one going over everything in regards to these delays, and the other going over the delays for one particular movie which had been delayed multiple times already, with only the last one being due to the pandemic. However, as mentioned in Update #5, I ultimately scrapped having to do that second one, because I didn’t need to. 

I have now decided to still do a second post, but in regards to these delays. What was originally going to be two parts has now been expanded to three. 

Part 1 is where I cover everything delayed from this year, as I’ve been doing for a good portion of it, which is also the reason why I haven’t been able to do as many reviews as intended. The pandemic resulted in me not having nearly enough new material to work with. 

Part 2, which I’ll be moving on to next following this update, is where I cover everything originally scheduled for as early as next year. 

Then Part 3 is where I just go over literally everything, and although I’ll be recapping everything from Parts 1 and 2, that’s necessary because it will also include every date change anyway, even some scheduled beyond next year. 

That’s right, folks; even ones scheduled further out have been affected, too. 

So I’ll be back soon with another Schedule Update post that can be considered Part 2 of the “Delay Dissection” Saga. 

Thoughts on Underwater (2020)

Image courtesy of wallpapersafari.com

Hello, everyone. As I promised in the post regarding the new schedule, my next review would be coming soon. Now, here it is. You might be surprised by this one, as much as I was with the movie itself, so let’s dive in with my first review of both 2020 and the new decade.

Folks, I present to you my review of Underwater.

The story follows a team of scientists tasked with drilling for resources at the bottom of the ocean. However, during their mission, part of their station, the Kepler 822, is hit by a massive earthquake. Upon regrouping, they realize that the longer they stay there, the more the rest of the Kepler will succumb to the pressure. They decide that their best chance of surviving is to suit up and go to another station, the Roebuck 641, that’s more stable, despite being a mile away.

Unfortunately, the slowly increasing pressure is the least of their problems... because once they set out to find the Roebuck, they not only have to face total darkness, but also what dangers might be lurking within it. On top of that, what seemed to be just a natural disaster may be something much more frightening.

Before I get into my thoughts on this, there is something that needs to be addressed: I am aware of the criticism stating this is just another Alien clone, and therefore I am aware of some parallels between that movie and this one. However, if I go over them here, it’ll more than likely involve major spoilers, and I usually try my best not to do that. Now, do I share that same sentiment that it’s just another knockoff of Alien with a different coat of paint? No, because there are several things that stood out to me with this that gave it a slight edge. That doesn’t mean I consider it better than Alien as an overall movie, let alone as a sci-fi horror movie (it’s not). Thus, it also doesn’t mean that I felt it was a beat-for-beat remake of it. If anything, I felt it was more inspired by Alien and trying to be its own thing. I’ll go more in depth on that in a moment, but for now, let’s get to my thoughts.

What Worked: Although the majority of the time I usually start with the cast anyway, there’s a particular reason why it’s important that I go over the lead right away on this one. Our main protagonist, Norah Price, is played by Kristen Stewart. Some of you may instantly be hesitant to see this movie upon hearing she’s even in it at all. While I can certainly agree that her character could have been played by anyone else, the fact that she was in it didn’t make me all of a sudden not want to see it. The premise alone was enough to keep me interested. Plus, you’ll be surprised in hearing this as much as I was while watching it… I honestly kind of liked her in this. It may take some time for you to buy her as a mechanical engineer, sure, but ultimately, you grow to like her character over the course of the movie, mainly because she puts everyone else before herself.

The fact that I liked her in this was a more than welcome surprise for me, especially after the last movie she was in, Charlie’s Angels In Name Only*. Therefore, to say I needed that would be an understatement.

As for the rest of the cast, there’s Vincent Cassel (Black Swan, Jason Bourne) as Captain Lucien, who suggests that they walk the mile over to the Roebuck. He’s the rational one of the group, trying to keep everyone calm and focused, yet also keeping something from them. He balanced those aspects very well in his performance, and I really liked his character. What also genuinely surprised me is how his secret was handled within the context of the story. It’s mostly kept in mystery as to what he knew, what he experienced, etc., because it’s after a certain thing happens in the middle of the movie, which leads everyone else to discover it for themselves.

Then we have John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane, The Belko Experiment**) as Liam Smith, a fellow engineer, and Jessica Henwick (Marvel’s Iron Fist, the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong) as Emily Haversham, a biologist. Even though Smith doesn’t really get to do much, there’s a reason for that; besides, I still felt John Gallagher Jr.’s performance was solid enough, despite probably being the weakest out of everyone.

As for Jessica Henwick, I thought she was awesome in this. Emily’s actions ultimately make her another strong female character.

There are two other scientists in the group. The first is Rodrigo Nagenda, played by Mamoudou Athie. Although he’s only in it for a few minutes, I still really liked him for the time he was in it. I also think he will get more attention with a more high-profile project coming out next summer that’s part of an established franchise.

The second is the comic relief for this movie: Paul Abel, played by T.J. Miller (perhaps best known as Weasel, the sidekick from Deadpool). Then again, really any movie he’s given a supporting role in has him as the comic relief, and this one is no exception. However, he’s not the type of comic relief that ends up being more obnoxious than hilarious. He’s genuinely funny in this, and most of his jokes are in the first few minutes of his screen time early on in the movie. Aside from that, he uses them sparingly, and they never feel out of place.

The last major cast member listed for this movie is worth noting for one reason. For any gamers out there reading this review, particularly those who happen to be fans of the Dead Space series, Gunner Wright, the voice of main protagonist Isaac Clarke himself, is also in this. Look out for a scene involving a transmission being played back for the crew, and you’ll hear him.

Now for the technical aspects. I still found the plot very interesting, despite it appearing as inspired by Alien. Here’s where the several things that give this a slight edge over it come in.

The first is the setting: Instead of a ship, this is set at the bottom of the ocean, which is a bigger environment with pretty much the only contained environments being the stations themselves. Therefore, rather than the creature attacking us in our own territory, they’re attacking us in theirs. On top of that, it’s as dark as you can possibly go, so since the surroundings are bigger, when the creatures strike, it’s more unpredictable. They can literally be anywhere, and you won’t see them coming. Being in an environment like that is genuinely scary.

With that being said, this doesn’t mean that the scares are jump scares you can see coming a mile away. They’re still jump scares, but they’re genuinely effective ones here.

Then there’s the time it takes for the chaos to begin. Buildup may be more suspenseful, but sometimes just getting right into it helps. If you’ve seen the trailer, it actually fools you into thinking it builds up. Where you see the station start to become unstable… it opens with that, and doesn’t let up. It’s literally one of the first scenes in the movie, and it just gets more unsettling and more intense from there.

Of course, when you have a creature feature, you’re bound to have some brutal kills in it. This is where it also doesn’t hold anything back. For a PG-13 movie, it felt like it was a hard PG-13 to where it was right on the cusp of being an R, particularly with one death scene halfway into the movie. All I’ll say is this: you’ll probably never look at diving suits the same way ever again.

The last thing that stood out to me and made this feel like its own thing is the main reason why I definitely didn’t want to go into spoilers on this one, because in this case, it would be a huge spoiler. This would be the ending. How it plays out is insane, because it has this big reveal that I did not see coming.

That last part is where I get to what automatically piqued my interest in this up a couple notches: The director, William Eubank. This isn’t the first time he’s had a big reveal like that in a movie. I first saw that in his last movie, The Signal, which I loved, and that was only his second movie. Having now seen his third, his style is really starting to impress me. Even though I haven’t seen his first movie, titled Love (another sci-fi movie), with The Signal and now this, I believe he’s becoming one of the most underrated directors working today. I not only want to seek out his first movie, but after this, he has two projects lined up next. Whenever they come out, I will definitely be looking forward to them. One of them is an action movie, so being the fan of action movies that I am already, I’m absolutely in for that. The other one is similar to this, and it’ll of course have a sci-fi twist on it, and I’m intrigued to see what that’ll have to offer.

It’s also worth noting that Marco Beltrami is one of the composers. His score here is really good, although with a composer of his caliber, that can be expected. For evidence of that, he has a very wide range of various genre experiences from his early work in the 90s up to now. Some of his most recent work prior to this includes Ford v Ferrari, A Quiet Place, and Logan.

One more excellent thing on display here is the cinematography. Simply put, this movie looks fantastic.

In regards to flaws, I would say the creature effects could have used a little work, but the designs themselves make up for that. Something that could have used some tweaking was the writing. It needed to make this feel more like its own thing in terms of the characters and their traits in addition to the narrative rather than mainly in the narrative. That’s really my main flaw, but I’m still willing to give it a pass because everything around it is so surprisingly good.

Overall: While not original, Underwater still has a lot going for it to make it stand out up against what came before. It’s not as scary as Alien, but it does have some elements that are scarier. Did I expect it to be better than a sci-fi classic? Of course not. Was I expecting a fun time with a sci-fi thriller that’s like it, but kind of its own thing, yet still entertaining from start to finish? Yes, and it’s exactly that.

What’s most impressive with this is all the production value that went into it. You’d think the budget was higher than it is, like maybe 100-120 million dollars, to warrant something of this quality. However, it looks really good for a movie budgeted at only 50-80 million. The acting is solid, even from Kristen Stewart. It’s shot very well, it’s intense throughout, and the creatures, in both design and effects, are as frightening as the environment they inhabit. The score is great, as you’d expect from someone like Marco Beltrami. It's so brutal in terms of deaths that you really would feel like it was rated R.

All of this comes together in one of my biggest surprises of the year so far. It’s definitely the most underrated so far for me. It makes it all the more sad that it didn’t do well, because it really does deserve more attention. For a January movie, a surprise such as this is a more than welcome one, especially from a director who hopefully gets more recognition in the future.

It’s one of the better January movies in recent memory for sure. We have two other surprisingly good ones that I’ll be reviewing soon.

But in addition to those, see Underwater when you can. It’s better than the trailer made it out to be. Much like in the movie, there’s so much more underneath the surface.

*Yes, I’ve seen it. Just you wait, folks… because when the time comes (and it will), I have something very special planned for that, which you can consider my review of it; doing it in my usual format is barely scratching the surface, and you’ll know why. I may at least do reviews of the original two movies (AKA the ones that were actually good; seriously, they’re a lot better than people give them credit for).

**The latter in particular is an underrated movie.

Schedule Adjustment

Image courtesy of hipwallpaper.com

The preceding image is for use until I have a proper logo for non-review posts on the site, upon which it will be adjusted to that.

Hello, everyone. With both the 2010s having just concluded, and a new decade having just begun, there’s some adjustments to the schedule that I would like to make. For those eager to see what’s on the schedule for 2020 going forward, I will get to it, but first, there’s something that needs to be addressed.

Since I started, and especially over the course of last year, I’ve realized that I’ve made a habit of overloading the schedule with reviews I hoped to do. As a result, this led to a lot of them not coming as planned. That does not mean that they won’t ever be made (of course they will), just much later than initially intended. From now on, I have decided to only announce what is either most likely or definitely expected, and any others I plan to do will be done in between and on my own time, including some long-overdue ones to make up for that.

Now, on to the schedule itself.

As such, here’s what I plan to review for the first year of the new decade:

Every DC Extended Universe movie up to this point (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Aquaman, and Shazam!). This was originally intended to be leading up to Birds of Prey*, but considering what I might start with, I may end up having to include that in the lead-up to Wonder Woman 1984 instead, since that comes out later in the year.

One of the long-overdue reviews: A Quiet Place, since the sequel is coming out this year.

The Bond franchise, with No Time to Die (the 25th Bond movie) coming out this year as well. In regards to these scheduled reviews, I’ll most likely start with that, since it’s one of the longest-running film franchises ever.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Catch-Up Reviews I promised last year, which, to recap, are the following movies: Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home. These are not only the concluding chapters of what we now know as The Infinity Saga, but also the stepping stones for a new beginning, as Phase Four kicks off this year with the release of both Black Widow and The Eternals.

The Fast and the Furious franchise reviews will most likely also happen this year since the ninth installment in the main series is coming out. If not, it will be a certainty for next year because that’s apparently when the franchise will end.

I might also do Ghostbusters this year, since Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which is being touted as the proper third installment everyone wanted, releases this year. Having just said that, I should probably include the most recent attempt at reviving the franchise as well. That way, a proper context as to why they’re trying again so soon will have been established.

An absolute certainty is my most anticipated movie of the entire year: Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. If you thought something like Inception played mind tricks on you, judging by the first trailer for this alone, this might actually top it.

However, it won’t stop there. There are plenty others I haven’t mentioned, and since it’s the beginning of a new decade, I figured why not just surprise everyone with the rest, and so starting this year, I’ll do just that.

With all that having been said, I’ll be back with my next review. What might that be? You’ll just have to wait and see, folks, so look forward to that soon, and I’ll see you there!

*I will just call it Birds of Prey throughout the review, including in the title. The full title is really only worth mentioning once, similar to how it’s been promoted, particularly in the TV spots. The full title is shown because it’s the logo, but only Birds of Prey is stated out loud in voiceover; I will take that same approach in reviewing it. I will even reiterate that when the time comes for me to do the review.

Thoughts on The Crow (1994)

Image courtesy of getwallpapers.com

Hello, everyone. Long time, no see. I realize that, again, I haven’t been posting much this year, but I’ve been trying my best to make up for that. I had several ideas for what to come back with, but I decided that with the holiday featured here, I figured, “Why not come back with this?”, and so I am. I also figured it’d be the perfect time to do it, since it’d not only be around the holiday itself, but also since this year marks the 25th Anniversary of the movie. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my review of one of the best comic book movies out there (and one that isn’t from Marvel nor DC, I should add), and that is… The Crow.

The story follows Eric Draven, a rock star who was supposed to get married on Halloween. Unfortunately, the night before, known as Devil’s Night (an infamous occasion in Detroit), a gang broke into their apartment and trashed the place, resulting in both he and his fiancée Shelly Webster dead, with Shelly having also been beaten and raped.

However, legend has it that if the conditions of your death are bad enough to where your soul can’t be at peace, a crow will bring your soul back to right the wrongs. One year after he and Shelly were killed, a crow taps on Eric’s grave, bringing him back. Upon revival, Eric goes after all of the gang members, picking them off one by one to reach the boss responsible for everything that happened.

What Worked: The acting across the board is fantastic. Brandon Lee (Bruce’s son), who tragically passed away during filming as a result of an accident on set, gives a phenomenal performance as Eric Draven. You feel his pain to where you’re rooting for him immediately to take the gang down, and every time he goes after one of the members, it’s satisfying to see them get what’s coming to them.

Brandon Lee has some great, and quite emotional, scenes with Rochelle Davis, who plays Sarah, a friend of Eric and Shelly. Sarah provides narration that bookends the movie, and the moment her opening narration ends, you’re in for a gratifying experience.

Despite the dark tone and the Gothic look for Detroit, the movie does have some humorous moments with Sergeant Albrecht, played by Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame. He has a snarky personality, but the humor mainly comes from banter in scenes with Sarah or Eric, and, on at least one occasion, both. There are two scenes where it’s particularly funny. One is where Eric pops in and Albrecht still has his hat on, which Eric notices almost immediately. The other is basically where there’s a Batman-Gordon dynamic between Eric and Albrecht, where Albrecht turns around and Eric is gone, similar to how Batman does it after he’s done speaking with Commissioner Gordon.

Speaking of which, there are several times where you can tell this likely influenced The Dark Knight. There’s that dynamic, a scene where Eric disappears and Albrecht turns to Sarah, telling her, “He does that a lot.” (similar to how Batman did it with Gordon and Harvey Dent, to which Gordon tells Dent, “He does that.”), and perhaps the most famous one is a scene involving a meeting.

This movie also has some of the most despicable villains you’ll ever see. The gang members (Tin-Tin, Funboy, T-Bird, and Skank) may be psychotic, but the most evil of them all is their boss Top Dollar, played by Michael Wincott (Treasure Planet*). He is just insane, and his voice is menacing. Then you get to his henchman, Grange, played by Tony Todd (Final Destination), whose voice is deep enough to intimidate anyone. Every time I see him, he’s awesome, and it holds true here.

Everyone else is really good, even if they’re not in it that much, aside from maybe David Patrick Kelly (Sully from Commando) as T-Bird and Angel David as Skank, who get the most screentime of the four gang members.

In addition to the performances, especially that of Brandon Lee, where this movie really stands out is the visual style, along with the surprising amount of emotion for a revenge movie. It may be grim and gritty, but it also has some excellent cinematography from Dariusz Wolski, who would go on to shoot the first four installments of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, as well as a few of Sir Ridley Scott’s more recent projects like Prometheus, The Martian, and Alien: Covenant. It accompanies Alex Proyas’s direction perfectly, which I will cover momentarily.

As if certain scenes between Eric and Sarah weren’t emotional enough, the score from Graeme Revell (known for scoring the Riddick franchise, Daredevil, and Sin City, among numerous others) really brings it home, namely the theme. Aside from Daredevil, this has probably his best theme. I will say this, though: Something else that the two movies share is that the soundtrack is awesome, featuring songs from Rage Against the Machine, The Cure, and even Nine Inch Nails.

When it’s not emotional, the movie delivers great action sequences. The best ones are Eric’s fight with Tin-Tin, the aforementioned meeting scene, and the finale.

The excitement and emotion are very well-balanced through the direction of Alex Proyas, who brings a clear sense of bleakness to his style, which is evident in the look of his follow-up, Dark City, the disaster-centric plot of Knowing, and to an extent, the tone of I, Robot. However, I still think this is his best movie.

The premise of this movie is also great, and it has some of the best story structure you can see. From the first frame, you know how dark the setting is, you’re instantly engaged in the story, and you care about the characters. You want to root for the hero throughout, and you can’t wait for the villains to be taken down. It may be fast-paced, but not once does it feel rushed. It flows very naturally, and as a result, the ending and all of the emotional and exciting story beats building up to it are earned.

Overall: The Crow is not only a great comic book movie, but it’s a great movie period that needs to be seen at least once, even if the dark and gritty approach isn’t your thing overall. While it does have a dark appearance, it’s not overly dark, as it does have its share of humor. It has just the right amount of emotional depth for both the story and characters mixed in with some fantastic action. It’s very well shot, well directed, and especially well acted. It makes it all the more sad that a star died doing what he loved while making this, because Brandon Lee really could have had his big break here, and gone on to have many more defining roles for years to come, establishing a legacy of his own like his father did. Because of what happened, it’s nothing short of a miracle that they were able to finish it and release it, but because they did, everyone was better for it, being able to experience something awesome. Although its star didn’t really get to have a legacy, the movie itself certainly has, becoming a huge hit and a cult classic, and for good reason: It rightfully earned it.

I remembered really liking this movie the last time I saw it, but having seen it again, both for myself and for this review, it ended up being even better than I remembered. Words cannot describe how much I love this movie.

If you haven’t seen it, be prepared for some heavy stuff, but once you do see it, I guarantee that you’ll be glad you did.

*Criminally underrated animated movie, by the way, and I cannot wait to get to that, along with a couple other ones I feel similarly about (one of which was also scored by Graeme Revell).

Thoughts on Ready or Not (2019)

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Since the summer is about to end with Labor Day Weekend, and the year’s offerings of horror movies are only about to get bigger with the release of It: Chapter Two, it was about time I reviewed another horror movie or thriller. As with Crawl a few weeks ago, with this one, the marketing also made it look at least okay… but then I started hearing the word of mouth for it was actually really good, and it was another one of the biggest surprises of the year. To start off the long weekend, I decided to check it out for myself, and everything I had heard was true. This really is one of the biggest surprises of the year.

So here I come… with my review for Ready or Not.

The story follows the Le Domas family, who are not only rich, but have a particular tradition. Any time someone in the family gets married, on the night of the wedding, they play a game. One of the sons, Alex, marries a young woman named Grace, thus allowing for the tradition to continue. When the clock strikes midnight, Grace learns how the tradition works: The newest addition to the family draws a card from a wooden box and whatever game was put on the card is the game they play. This time, the game is Hide and Seek. She has to hide, and the rest of the family has to find her. However, it turns out that there’s a catch to the game which is also part of the tradition: The family has to hunt down their newest member before dawn.

What Worked: The main thing that makes this movie so surprising is the tone. It may have been sold as just another horror movie with a ridiculous premise, but what wasn’t revealed well in advance is this: There’s a sense of self-awareness to it. It knows its premise is ridiculous, and just runs with it. As a result, it becomes more of a horror comedy*. I had heard a little bit about the self-awareness going in, but what really caught me off guard while watching it was how funny it was. When there’s either a witty line of dialogue, a kill that comes out of nowhere (the latter of which does happen a couple times), or even a moment of downtime, it’s hilarious, and sometimes it’s all three. Both the movie and the experience become that much more fun because of it.

The mix of horror and humor benefit from a clever script, as there are some intense moments here with some comedy thrown in. The biggest example for me was a scene set in the kitchen; for anyone interested in checking this movie out, look out for that.

All of this especially shows in the performances, particularly Samara Weaving as Grace. She’s fantastic in this movie. In fact, everyone is really good, even Henry Czerny as the father Tony, and Andie MacDowell as the mother Becky. They all play off of each other very well with their performances, which in turn shows in the interaction between the characters.

There are four other things that stand out here: The set design, the cinematography, the direction and the score. I mentioned the kitchen scene, but the set design throughout the whole movie is excellent. The same goes for the cinematography and the direction, because this movie is well shot throughout. It’s also moments like the kitchen scene and the ones that focus on scares**, regardless of whether or not they set up a comedic moment, where Brian Tyler’s score really shines.

One more thing that’s worth noting: It’s fast-paced. The movie is only a little over an hour and a half, and it does go by quickly, but not once does it feel like it’s going by too quickly.

What Didn’t Work: I do have a couple minor flaws. There are some questionable decisions, an example being how something is established with one of the women in the family, and yet one of the men gives her his weapon. The moment that happens, you just know it’s clearly going to go well. However, it does lead to a running gag and one of the funniest moments of the movie, which involves that character and weapon.

The reason why the family is trying to hunt Grace down is brought up several times, which makes the ending kind of predictable because of it. It does build up to an ultimately very satisfying payoff, though. What happens is predictable, but how it happens is not. I honestly thought it was going to happen in one of several different ways, and that was not the first one that came to mind for me. Plus, it’s so unexpected that it becomes another hilarious moment.

Otherwise, that’s really it.

Overall: Ready or Not is the latest example of taking a horror movie or thriller that at first glance sounds ridiculous, and then revealing that there’s more to it than you thought. As with Crawl, this is another case of “Looks can be deceiving” or “Don’t judge a book by its cover” (or rather a movie by its trailer; same difference), because you never really know what you might be in for until you see it for yourself. It’s also a movie that uses the absurdity of its story to its advantage by playing it silly rather than straight, and it’s much better for it.

With just the right balance of horrific and hilarious moments, a great score, smart writing, terrific set design, cinematography and direction, and fantastic acting featuring an excellent lead performance from Samara Weaving, Ready or Not is one of the biggest surprises of both the summer and of the whole year. If you’re looking for a movie to see before you start your Fall Movie Season off, be it with something like It: Chapter Two or even Rambo: Last Blood, I’d say give this one a shot, especially if you’re someone who feels horror movies are best experienced at night and with as big a crowd as possible. You might just end up having one of the most fun experiences you’ve had all year, as I did.

*Yes, horror comedy is an actual sub-genre of horror (Scream, need I say more).

**Including a scene involving a nail, which is so unsettling… even if it’s not quite as unsettling as the nail scene in A Quiet Place.

Thoughts on Crawl (2019)

Image courtesy of wallpapersden.com

As I mentioned in the intro of the Deep Blue Sea review, there is another movie that came out the same month of its Anniversary. It’s another creature feature, albeit a more recent one, but it does the same thing that made Deep Blue Sea so effective: Build up the scares, and have creatures that are scary enough already to encounter in real life just pop out when you least expect it in ways that actually work. With Deep Blue Sea, it was sharks. This time it’s alligators, in the best thriller of the year by far: Crawl.

The story follows a woman named Haley Keller who hasn’t heard from her father Dave for sometime. To make matters worse, a Category 5 hurricane hits Florida, so she goes to the family’s old house to try to find him and get him out. However, while she does manage to find him in the crawl space, the area is not only slowly flooding… vicious alligators have found their way in.

What Worked: The acting is really good, especially from Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper*. They have great chemistry as father and daughter, too, and there are also some moments that make you really feel for them. There’s that sense of dread and you want to see them make it out alive.

The creature effects are fantastic in this movie, particularly this one shot involving a close-up of a gator’s eye. Whenever the gators show up, they look great, and there’s one part that looks as excellent as the aforementioned eye shot. It involves one corner of the crawl space, which is as best I can put it without giving too much away. It also involves something else crawling on, rather than in, someone’s skin. It’s one of the most unsettling scenes here aside from the gator attacks and kills.

Also, Alexandre Aja ends up being the perfect choice to direct this movie, as he’s had experience with creature features before, and ones that embrace their crazy stories; for evidence of that, look at his version of Piranha.

Now let’s get to the meat of this movie (no pun intended). The gator attack scenes are so brutal, and I don’t just mean the kills. You see people get thrashed around like rag dolls, with Haley’s first gator encounter being the most intense one, as well as bone fractures.

If those don’t make you wince, the kills certainly will. Be on the lookout for one involving a cop… not the one in the trailer, but one shortly after that.

This leads me to another thing that Aja did so well with Piranha that he does again here: He knows how to do shock value, and especially gore, properly. Unlike most other horror directors who tend to put them in for the sake of having them in the movie, he builds them up, and then uses them when you least expect it. As a result, you’re constantly on edge.

He handles the scares in the same way. Yes, there are jump scares, but they all felt genuine to me. I did not spot a single false alarm** jump scare. Even the background scares will have you on edge, like one in the same scene with the goriest death in the movie.

The score and cinematography are also very good.

What Didn’t Work: Some of the scares you may see coming, where you can call who’s going to die in those scenes almost immediately. There are some stupid decisions here as well, but they’re minimal at best.

I also had a minor issue with how it ended. It was satisfying, but then it just cut to black when it did and the credits began rolling. I would have liked for it to go on for maybe another couple minutes or so. That’s really it in terms of flaws, though.

Overall: If you’re looking for something to see on Friday night, with as big an audience as possible, Crawl is the movie for you. It’s intense, it’s scary, it’s gory as can be, but it’s also a lot of fun. Besides, while you may see some of the scares coming… how they happen, you definitely won’t, and the characters are very resourceful for the most part. It’s easily one of the year’s biggest surprises, and it might be my pick for Best Thriller by the end of the year, unless another thriller somehow finds a way to top it.

*In a Maze Runner reunion, by the way.

**That’s the term used to describe cheap jump scares, the biggest example being whenever an animal (usually a cat) jumps out from the shadows and runs across the room.

Thoughts on Deep Blue Sea (1999)

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It’s that time again, everyone: Another month, another Anniversary post… and coincidentally, right in the middle of Shark Week. That’s right, folks: This one is for a shark movie (no, not that one; that’s next year, although it is referenced here at least once, and the influence it had on this one is there to some extent). It’s a very intense thriller, and my personal favorite shark movie that isn’t Jaws. It’s very scary at points, but it does what would be done to equally great effect in the recently-released Crawl: Build up the scares, and have creatures that are scary enough already to encounter in real life just pop out when you least expect it in ways that actually work. That movie, ladies and gentlemen, is Deep Blue Sea.

The story follows a group of researchers conducting an experiment using sharks in the hopes of reactivating human brain cells, and ultimately, finding a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease. However, things go haywire when several genetically engineered sharks break free and flood the facility.

What Worked: The acting is overall very good. There were three standouts for me. The first one is Thomas Jane (The Punisher, and I even liked him in The Predator*), who plays Carter Blake, the team’s shark wrangler. Not only is he an awesome character, but it’s also pretty smart for them to have someone that can restrain the sharks when necessary. The decisions they make are more smart than stupid, but I’ll delve deeper into that in a moment.

The one cast member who’s probably the biggest name out of all of them was actually the second standout for me, and that is Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Russell Franklin, the executive sent to the facility after an incident in the beginning of the movie. When you have someone like him, you’re bound to get some great quotes and moments. You definitely get at least one of the two here.

The biggest standout for me is of course the best character in the movie: Sherman “Preacher” Dudley, the team’s cook, portrayed by LL Cool J. One could say he’s the comic relief, and to an extent, he is. He gets some of the best lines because his delivery is so hilarious.

Since I’m giving my thoughts on the performances, this leads to my point on the characters. I briefly mentioned how having a shark wrangler is a smart decision. A lot of the decisions made here are actually smart. Two examples come from Preacher; one is when he’s backed into a corner (so to speak), and the other is a “last resort” type thing, which is another great moment in this movie.

Even though the majority of her decisions are stupid rather than smart, Saffron Burrows’s character Dr. Susan McAlester does make at least one smart one. It’s in a scene where she has her own “backed into a corner” scenario, and it involves the best shot of a shark’s fin in the movie, and one of the better shark shots.

Whenever you see the sharks in more contained areas, like in that scene, or in close-up, they look really good. They used both animatronic sharks (as was famously done with Jaws) and computer-generated sharks for this movie, so the more close-up shots of the sharks look like they were animatronic. The effects there hold up very well 20 years later.

Trevor Rabin’s score is really good, particularly the theme; you get cues of it throughout the movie following the opening, and it’s so unsettling.

The score accompanies a great use of tension, which results in some very effective scares, including the one death scene that this movie is known for; even though I won’t spoil it, you probably already know what it is. Through his direction, Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger) manages to pull that off quite well. Aside from Cliffhanger, this might be his best movie. As a result, the movie is not only intense, but also very fast-paced.

There are some fantastic shots, a couple of which are aerial shots, so it has some excellent cinematography on display as well. What surprised me is that this was shot by Stephen F. Windon, who would go on to shoot most of the Fast and the Furious films, starting with Tokyo Drift**.

Then there’s the thing that stands out other than “that scene”: The soundtrack, which includes not one, but two songs from LL Cool J, one of which I find to be among the greatest songs for a movie to come out of the 90s… “Deepest Bluest (My Hat Is Like A Shark’s Fin)”.

What Didn’t Work: Even though there aren’t as many stupid decisions as one might expect, they need to be addressed regardless. There are two examples that really stand out. The first one involves Dr. Jim Whitlock, played by Stellan Skarsgård (Thor, Pirates of the Caribbean), who does still give a good performance despite being only in the movie for a few minutes. You’ll know when you see it. The other, more prominent example involves Susan, which is basically the reason why everything went wrong; in fact, it involved both her and Jim. It’s made very evident that everything is more or less her fault when Carter and Russell display some of the most rational thinking out of everyone by trying to talk some sense into her. At that point, it really shows that Susan has very noble intentions, but has been very misguided in going through with them. Aside from those two particular examples, these types of decisions are present, but don’t stand out nearly as much because they only happen occasionally.

While the moments with the animatronic sharks look really good, the effects are very noticeable for the most part whenever the sharks are out in the open. Even by 1999 standards, the CGI here hasn’t really aged well; plus, we had some phenomenal visual effects at the time, including one particular movie I reviewed earlier this year.

The somewhat dated appearance of the CGI doesn’t just apply to the sharks, because some of the deaths also have it. There’s even some fire and explosion effects that don’t really hold up, either. Now, granted, the CGI here is not laughably bad like the effects in the last 20 minutes of Species (which I need to review), but they’re still noticeable when you see them.

Overall: Deep Blue Sea is a shark movie that may not be as impactful as Jaws, but it doesn’t try to be, although I do appreciate the ways they honor it. It’s only trying to stand out as its own thing, and it really succeeds at that. It keeps you constantly on edge, and when the sharks come out, they really catch you off guard. Some of the deaths are pretty brutal to watch as a result, and while the scares are jump scares, they’re actually done right. The performances are really good, and despite most of their decisions being questionable at best, you still at one point or another feel invested in seeing as many of the characters survive as possible.

Even with the few flaws I have, I still love this movie. Plus, there’s something about them that makes them part of the fun. For example, you know they’re not all going to make the best choices, but sometimes, it helps move the story along, and you get to see how they play out either way.

Deep Blue Sea may not try to surpass Jaws as the better shark movie, but it does have one edge over it: You get to see more than one shark tear people apart in this movie. That, and you get an iconic 90s song in the credits.

*That reminds me… I have a lot of catching up to do, which will likely include quite a few movies that I’m in the minority on, and that is one of them (and once I’ve reviewed that, I might just be introducing a new editorial that I’ve had in mind for some time now, and let’s just say I’ve known the perfect way to start).

**I’ll be reviewing those very soon.

Thoughts on Independence Day (1996)

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Since the 4th of July has arrived, I figured why not do another holiday review… by celebrating Independence Day with a review of Independence Day.

On July 2nd, 1996, a large mothership enters Earth’s orbit and launches a worldwide attack by sending saucers to major cities, three of which are ultimately decimated.

On July 3rd, world leaders begin attempting counterstrikes of their own, to no avail. However, the Americans do discover why they’re here. When July 4th hits, people around the world come together for what may be either a triumphant victory… or their last stand.

What Worked: The cast is really good. The standouts are Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum, with some highlights also coming from Judd Hirsch, Randy Quaid, Brent Spiner, and to some extent, Harvey Fierstein and Harry Connick Jr. in what are basically extended cameos since both of them are only in the movie for a few minutes.

The script, written by Roland Emmerich himself alongside his producing partner Dean Devlin, is actually pretty good for a disaster movie. It does what a disaster movie should: take the absurdity of the story and embrace it. It shows that everyone involved had fun making it, and in turn it helps show that you are having fun watching it. It also provides some memorable and quotable lines, as well as one of the best speeches in a movie ever. Emmerich’s direction isn’t bad, either. In fact, this is probably his best movie.

When it comes to the effects, the first question that will likely be asked is: Do they hold up now over 20 years later? For the most part, yes… or at least the majority of them do (examples being the designs of the aliens, and how they move around; they looked very practical).

I don’t normally mention this, but it stood out to me here: I really liked the structure of the movie. It takes place over the course of three days: from July 2nd up until July 4th. This timeframe not only shows how the conflict escalates, but it also allows for progression of the narrative. July 2nd - the aliens arrive and three major cities are destroyed. July 3rd - the Americans discover the aliens’ motive. July 4th - you can probably figure out what happens from there. This means the clichés are there, and yet, that’s another result of the absurdity: it becomes more fun to watch because they’re there. It happened in a lot of movies in the 90s (especially in sci-fi and action movies), and this one is no exception, so it gets a pass because it acknowledges them. It may be a predictable pattern you may have seen done before and done better, but it’s still fun to see how it plays out here nonetheless.

Even if it’s more of a sci-fi action movie, it does have some moments that feel like a sci-fi horror movie that are pretty creepy, especially a lab scene, where nothing could possibly go wrong.

What Didn’t Work: Although the majority of the effects on display here still hold up, the rest don’t really stand out. For me, it was some laser effects and some of the fire and explosion effects. Though they are great for the time, the moment I saw the visuals in those scenes, I realized they did not hold up well at all. Also, speaking of the lab scene, while it is creepy, it is one of those scenes you can’t help but predict what’s going to happen.

Overall: Independence Day is a prime example of a blockbuster that accomplished what rarely happens now: get the moviegoing audience interested, and let the hype build up from there. It’s one of those movies where people were actually excited to go see it to the point that it became an event, and ultimately delivered on the hype. It also helped bring large-scale disaster movies back, leading to several being released throughout the rest of the 90s, and garner renewed interest in sci-fi as a whole.

On top of that, it serves as a prime example of what popcorn entertainment should be: fun. The movie in question may not be perfect and have some cheesy moments here and there. However, as long as it shows that it can be self-aware about it and just run with it, it’s done its job, because what’s most important is that the movie ends up being a lot of fun.

Independence Day does exactly that. Even if it’s not a perfect movie, it is still solid in the action, sci-fi, and especially disaster movie departments, and it does hold up really well today.

One thing it is perfect for, though, is your collection, as it’s definitely one to pop in for when you feel like making some noise. For those looking for a movie to watch this Fourth of July weekend, this is a good one to celebrate the occasion.

Thoughts on Tarzan (1999)

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Following the revisiting of two sci-fi classics (including one of my favorite movies of all time), I figured why not do another Anniversary post where I cover something a little lighter, and something that also happens to be a childhood favorite of mine.

This month marks the 20th Anniversary of the movie that marked the end of the Disney Renaissance of the 90s, and one of two Disney movies I grew up with the most*, and that movie is Tarzan, one of numerous adaptations of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In this version, set in the 1890s, an English couple, along with their infant son, end up in a jungle off the coast of Africa after escaping a shipwreck. They use what they can gather from the wreckage to build a treehouse, but not long after, the couple is killed by a leopard named Sabor. The baby survives, and is later found by a female gorilla named Kala, who lost her own son to the leopard. She brings him back to her clan, where her mate (and the clan leader), Kerchak, allows her to keep the baby but will not call him his son. Kala names the baby Tarzan and begins raising him, and Tarzan in turn views the gorillas as his family. Upon encountering a group of explorers, however, Tarzan, now an adult, starts learning about his humanity, and only he can decide where he really belongs: with his own kind or with the one he grew up with.

What Worked: The animation is fantastic in this movie. It’s one of the best examples of 2D/hand-drawn animation I’ve ever seen that honestly, I feel is often overlooked compared to some that came before, yet are still classics in their own right**. Plus, it really brings the story and characters to life, which is further enhanced through the music and voice acting.

With the story, and this being an adaptation, changes have to be made in order to fit within the context of the narrative in question. This is a prime example of an adaptation where the changes are made in ways that make sense while still respecting the source material by keeping the majority of its key plot points intact. They allow you to be invested in the characters, and occasionally even feel for them. This version has some dark moments, some very emotional ones, and some action scenes, but also a few funny ones, because the humor works very well. They balance so perfectly that the tone remains consistent throughout, and as a result, so does the pace, especially in the action scenes involving Sabor and Clayton.

Now for what really makes this version stand out in addition to the animation: the music and the voice acting.

The music consists of both an excellent score by Mark Mancina (whose prior work included Speed, Bad Boys, Twister, and Con Air) and the iconic soundtrack from Phil Collins. The songs in particular suit crucial parts of the story, and give those scenes a greater impact, especially the more emotional moments. The song “You’ll Be In My Heart” alone is sad enough on its own, but just wait until you hear it in the movie. It’s so powerful that it won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and absolutely deserved it.

It shows in the scenes where Kala and Tarzan are bonding that feature that song, and the closing moments of the scene featuring my personal favorite song in the movie, “Strangers Like Me,” where Tarzan is learning human culture from Jane.

Even if it’s voice acting, Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan has great chemistry with both Glenn Close as Kala and Minnie Driver as Jane in those scenes. He even gets some heartfelt moments with Kerchak (voiced by Lance Henriksen of Aliens fame), as well as some humorous ones with his friends Terk (voiced by Rosie O’Donnell) and Tantor (an elephant voiced by Wayne Knight). There’s also some humor from Jane’s father, Professor Porter, voiced by Nigel Hawthorne.

Then there are the villains of this movie. The first is Sabor, who makes the action scenes she’s in even more intense just by her presence alone, particularly her fight with Tarzan in the middle of the movie. The other villain is Clayton, voiced by Brian Blessed, a hunter looking for the gorillas for his own agenda, unbeknownst to everyone else. He may seem just determined at first, but you know he’s up to something, which makes him not only such a great Disney villain, but also a great villain period.

Overall: Tarzan is an animated masterpiece, with the perfect balance of humor and heart, top-notch animation and voice acting, some of the best music an animated movie has to offer, and memorable characters, all of which come together into what I consider to be the definitive Tarzan movie, one of my personal favorite Disney movies, and one of my personal favorite animated movies in general.

To close this review out, I will say this: This movie will be in my heart, from this day on, now and forever more. It’ll be in my heart, no matter what they say. It’ll be here in my heart.

Always.

*Keep that in mind, folks. By this time next year (which is that movie’s 20th Anniversary), you’ll know the other one. I know it’s a long wait, but ultimately, it’ll be more than worth it.

**One such classic is even referenced here with an Easter Egg that’s pretty easy to spot.

Thoughts on Alien (1979)

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Hello, everyone. For this review, we’re going from one anniversary to another. It’s still sci-fi, but whereas the last one was a sci-fi action classic, this one is a sci-fi horror classic. It elevated that genre to a new level, and this year marks the 40th Anniversary of such an achievement, and that is Alien.

The story follows a crew of seven aboard a vessel called the Nostromo, which is on its way back to Earth when they are awakened to a distress signal from a nearby planet. While investigating, one of the crew members, Kane, makes contact with an egg-like pod, which then opens up. The creature within jumps out and wraps around his face. He becomes the unfortunate host for a monstrous Alien, which upon bursting from his chest, begins picking off the rest of the crew one by one.

What Worked: The cast give great performances, and they play off of each other very well. It’s particularly evident in two scenes: their discussion over the situation at hand (being woken up to investigate a distress signal), and especially the mess hall scene. It’s most noticeable with the characters of Parker and Brett, played respectively by Yaphet Kotto (Live and Let Die) and Harry Dean Stanton, who was mostly cast in supporting roles throughout his career, examples being Escape From New York, Christine, and The Green Mile. You also see a little bit of it earlier on between Ellen Ripley, the main protagonist, and Veronica Cartwright’s character Lambert, the navigator, as they’re headed to the planet.

The standout, though, is of course Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley herself in what would become her first major role in a movie*. Not only that, it’d become the role that would define her career, as before this movie, she wasn’t as big a name as people like Tom Skerritt, who plays Dallas (the Captain), or even John Hurt, who plays Kane.

The next positive is the production value that went into this. They use miniatures for the scale of the ship’s exterior, which had similarly been done two years prior with Star Wars, as well as matte paintings for the look of space. The matte paintings are fantastic at conveying how scary it can appear. Much like in Star Wars, the miniatures hold up really well even today.

This also applies to the set design, the effects, and the sound design. The sets, namely the look of the Derelict ship that sent the signal, the Space Jockey inside of it, and the interior of the Nostromo itself, hold up just as much.

The effects are where this movie really established its legacy both in horror and in sci-fi, from the Eggs to the Facehugger to the Chestburster to the Alien itself. The Chestburster scene alone is iconic for several reasons, and the fact that the effects still look as great as they do 40 years later is one of them. The practical effects on display here look excellent; for example, in scenes like that, they used puppets. It was a few years before CGI would start being used, so when not using puppets, creatures were still portrayed by people in suits, and this is no exception. In this case, it’s similar to Predator, where they got someone very tall to be in the suit, that being Nigerian visual artist Bolaji Badejo. Despite his height at 7’2”, he was still able to capture the movement of the Alien from within the suit, which is surprising when you consider the creature design. All of these achievements in visual effects proved worthy of an Oscar.

The sound design is so unnerving. When you hear the Egg open up, you know what’s about to happen, and the sound of the Facehugger popping out of it is even scarier. Then comes the Chestburster scene, and it only escalates from there.

The suspense is built up really well, and it has some very effective scares. Most of them may be jump scares, but they’re examples of when they’re done right. The highlights for me were actually background scares. One of them is where Brett is looking for Jonesy (the cat), and you think you see something behind him that might be just pipes… and then seconds later, you realize you were totally wrong. That’s the best scene where the Alien pops up in the movie. The other one is in the last few minutes. Be sure to look out for it.

Another terrifying scene takes place in the vents. When you see the Alien pop up there, that’s when you realize how big of a threat it really is. Plus, you get another great look at it, which also shows how eerie the atmosphere (no pun intended) is.

Even if you set the scares aside, this movie still has some very frightening scenes. The aforementioned Chestburster scene again comes to mind. It earns its status as one of the scariest scenes in horror and sci-fi history because of how suddenly it happens. Even though you know something’s about to go horribly wrong, and even if you’re at least familiar with this scene, you won’t see it coming. You’ll feel terrified at what you just witnessed, much like how the other crew members react. How I just worded that is coincidentally how it was when they did that: The cast members knew it would happen because it was in the script, but then their reactions came… and the characters’ reactions are also their own. As you watch that scene, watch their reactions. That is genuine fear you’re seeing from them. What’s even more impressive is that they managed to do all of that in one take.

The moment the Chestburster escapes, the only thing you know for sure is that it eventually becomes a fully-grown Alien. You’ll be constantly on edge, not knowing where the Alien could be, let alone when it’s going to show up. Why it’s so unpredictable is that it’s shown sparingly, much like the shark in Jaws**. You get teases of it, so you know it could be anywhere, and then it pops out when you least expect it. However, I’d say it works even better here, because it’s in a contained environment, the Alien uses every open space it can to its advantage, and its appearance allows it to hide in the shadows.

All of that is accompanied perfectly with Jerry Goldsmith’s score and Ridley Scott’s direction, where at first you get a sense of astonishment at what you’re seeing, and then it goes into very terrifying, very fast.

While the characters grow increasingly overwhelmed about their predicament, unlike most horror movies, the majority of them don’t let it get the better of them. Quite a few smart decisions are made here, which is something you don’t really see a lot of these days. For example, you have Dallas, who’s mostly laidback, which does lead to some questionable actions, but he comes to make more responsible decisions later.

As for someone like Lambert, she’s very nervous at points, which ultimately causes her to want to evacuate immediately. She becomes one of those characters in a horror movie who always makes stupid decisions, and in a movie full of smart ones, it does make sense to have that one character to balance things out.

The character who has the most rational thinking is Ripley herself, because her strictly “by-the-book” attitude kicks in when attempts are made to bring Kane back on board after he’s attacked. She knows the potential risks that come with that, and tries her best not to let them in. Of course, it wouldn’t be a movie if it actually worked, but it’s not her fault it happened anyway.

It also has a surprising twist that’s set up really well, involving Ian Holm’s character Ash, who gets some unsettling moments of his own, and a very satisfying (and even more surprising) ending. With the ending, it’s something that at the time wasn’t really seen all that often in horror movies. That’s the best way I can put it without going too much into it.

When it comes to problems, I would say that it’s a bit slow at first, but once they land on the planet, it really gets going and doesn’t let up. However, because it’s all about tension and building up its scares, it’s understandable that it would have a slow start, and so I’m willing to overlook that.

Overall: Alien is an important piece of sci-fi and horror cinema, with its legendary effects, an iconic creature design, a protagonist that would become one of the prime examples of a strong female character, and its excellent use of gradual buildup to produce scares that have a lasting impression on the viewer. Even with the legacy it’s garnered so many years later, spawning a franchise that’s also included comics, novels, games, and crossovers, it still works as a self-contained story. Whether you’re a sci-fi fan, a horror fan, or both, and especially if you love movies in general, this is something that you need to see at least once.

*No, I am not making that up.

**An approach also taken in another, albeit more recent, monster movie, yet not as effective… but that’s for another upcoming review.

Thoughts on The Matrix (1999)

Image courtesy of IMDb

Hello, everyone. For this review, I’m going to do something a little different. It marks the triumphant return of the retrospective review. This one will focus on what is easily one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s not just one of the best action movies for me (where something like Predator would be), but it really is one of the best movies period.

This year, this month, and today, in fact, marks the 20th Anniversary of a sci-fi classic, and that movie is known as The Matrix.

The story follows computer programmer Thomas A. Anderson, better known under his hacker persona, Neo, who discovers that the world he knows is not as real as it seems. Instead, it is part of the Matrix, a system created to resemble the world he’s familiar with. The question of “What is the Matrix?” leads him to meeting the man who has been searching for him his entire life: Morpheus, the leader of a human resistance waging a war against the machines*. Morpheus believes that Neo is “The One,” a savior that will free humanity and end the war once and for all.

What Worked: One thing that still hasn’t changed since the last time I did a retrospective review is that, with a few exceptions, the cast and performances are usually discussed first.

Keanu Reeves gives an excellent performance as Neo. His range as an actor really began to show throughout this movie alone. He goes from initially being soft-spoken and subdued to being in denial of the truth before then accepting and ultimately embracing it. That narrative arc is just one of many things here that are so satisfying.

Laurence Fishburne is great as Morpheus. He’s kind of like the “wise mentor” type of character, except only the “Zen” personality is all that’s needed with him. It’s evident in his voice and especially his dialogue. As a result, he gets some of the best lines in the movie because of how quotable, yet also insightful, they are.

Then we have Carrie-Anne Moss as the love interest, Trinity. This character basically made her career, and rightfully so, because she is awesome in this movie. The personality she gives Trinity makes her a great example of a strong female character in an action movie. She’s very committed to her cause, is very loyal to her fellow rebels, and will not let anything stand in her way. She will not hesitate to take people down, as shown in the opening scene. That along with her skills in combat earn Trinity the same iconic status in regards to strong movie heroines as Ellen Ripley in Aliens and Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Next is the best villain of the 90s other than the T-1000: Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith. He’s among the Agent programs in the Matrix, who are designed to protect it from anything they deem a threat to the system. To say that Agent Smith is intimidating would be an understatement. He is unrelenting and ruthless, and although he does have backup, it’s the scenes that mainly focus on him where he stands out. Plus, he has a clear motivation, which is dedicated to a completely different agenda outside of his duties, and I thought that was clever because it fleshed him out as a character more. On top of all that, Hugo Weaving’s voice is so unsettling, and that might be what led him to become one of the “go-to” actors for villains, particularly the voice of Megatron in the first three Transformers movies and the Red Skull in Captain America: The First Avenger.

The supporting cast are really good as well, even if a majority of them don’t have much screentime. The biggest one to mention is Joe Pantoliano as Cypher, because he’s in the movie the most of all of them, going so far as getting the first line of dialogue. He’s similar to the character of Obadiah Stane in Iron Man, where you like him at first, and then something happens where you may end up feeling it was wrong to do so.

Although some of the cast have smaller roles, their characters certainly do leave an impact regardless. The highlights of the supporting characters for me were Tank (who’s probably my favorite), his brother Dozer, and Mouse. The other two, Apoc and Switch, are in it the least of the bunch, but they’re worth mentioning due to having a couple significant moments of their own. There’s one other character in this movie that’s part of a key plot point. However, since they’re present in the sequels as well, I’ll save mentioning them for those reviews for two reasons: 1: They’re more prominent in the sequels, particularly the third movie, and 2: Going into it now would be a bit of a spoiler.

This movie would not only make several actors more well known, but it would do the same for writers/directors The Wachowski Brothers**. Although they hadn’t done anything of this scale before, while watching it, you can’t really tell because of how amazing it looks. Despite not having more flashy and stylistic approaches to things such as cinematography or set design, within the context of the story, the bleak setting and occasional green tint make sense here. Their direction is great, but it’s the story and script that really shine. They managed to create a fascinating world to expand upon later, craft a very complex story around it, and incorporate equally thought-provoking themes.

Now here’s what really defines this movie. The visual effects are so outstanding and would prove to be legendary, especially by 1999 standards (and for good reason). It made such an impact on the entertainment industry as a whole that it became both a landmark on how far we had come with visual effects at that time and a turning point for how further we could take them in the future. The main thing in regards to the effects is called “bullet time,” where a particular scene is in slow motion, but the camera moves normally at the same time. For a movie that’s now 20 years old, the effects still hold up remarkably well. To put all of that into perspective, all of the effort that went into these effects earned all of the recognition it received. It was nominated for four Oscars, and won every single one, even Best Visual Effects.

The action is just as revolutionary even today, because it’s incredible how action sequences and effects as phenomenal as these, which you’d think by now we’d have just been able to perfect, we were somehow able to accomplish in 1999. There are so many action scenes that stand out, but there are two that this movie is mostly known for. There’s the rooftop scene with Neo and Trinity fighting off Agents, which includes that shot of Neo dodging the bullets that was famously used in the trailer and parodied numerous times since. Then there’s the most well known one, which is the lobby shootout sequence leading up to that. It’s easy to see why, because for one thing, the buildup to that is great: Neo and Trinity get “Guns. Lots of guns.”, arm themselves, and make their entrance. Then the scene really kicks into high gear when they both look at each other before facing their enemies, and the moment they do, Propellerheads’s “Spybreak!” starts playing. The song fits the scene really well, so the excitement you feel from watching it is enhanced even more. That, and it’s one of several awesome songs on the soundtrack.

Speaking of the soundtrack, you also get songs from artists such as Rammstein, Rob Zombie, The Prodigy, and Rob Dougan. It most notably features Rage Against the Machine and Marilyn Manson as well. Their songs might be the two best ones for me, although I do like the Propellerheads and Rob Dougan songs, too. This was during the time when it was common for certain movies to have popular artists featured on the soundtrack, but this is one of the best examples of a soundtrack being used to fit the scenes in question.

Don Davis’s score, however, accompanies the movie perfectly. The best track comes after Morpheus tells Neo, “Welcome to the real world.” Right after that, the track of the same name starts playing, and how it flows throughout the scene is fantastic. It’s also great in the action scenes, and especially by the end of the movie.

Overall: The Matrix is a sci-fi classic that came ahead of its time, yet at the right time. You’d think at first glance that it looks like something we’d be more easily capable of pulling off now, with the look, the effects, the action, and everything in between, and that the technology we had then was not advanced enough for that. Then you watch it, and you come to realize it also came at the time when we were starting to use our technology more. It’s the best of both worlds: Smart sci-fi and exciting action at their finest.

It’s an experience that will blow you away with everything that went into it. Even now, it’s still astounding how it was done. From the outside, no one knew the cultural phenomenon it would become, let alone the legacy it would have, until they saw it. Without this movie, we wouldn’t have this decade’s version in the form of Inception, nor would we have its version of a Keanu Reeves action franchise in the form of John Wick, or the underrated sci-fi action movie known as Equilibrium.

As Morpheus would say, “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” Even the marketing was done right. They used the “What is the Matrix?” scene, and then concluded with that quote in the trailer, making it look like he’s speaking to the audience when he’s actually speaking to Neo, and that is brilliant. It garnered hype for the movie, people wanted to know what it was, they saw it, and it lived up to the hype by delivering an awesome movie where the overall experience is very satisfying from start to finish.

Not only is it a sci-fi classic, it’s also an action classic. However, as a movie in general, The Matrix is a cinematic masterpiece. Although I described what it is in the movie as vaguely as I could, this is something that you really do have to see for yourself.

For those that somehow still haven’t seen it, instead of saying “What are you doing? Go out and watch it!”, I’m going to do a different version of it for you:

You take the blue pill, you miss out on something incredible, unlike anything that you’ve ever seen before.

You take the red pill, you get to witness it, and I guarantee you’ll be glad you did.

Where we go from there… is a choice I leave to you.

*No, not that one. This is much different from that, and I’ll get to that franchise later.

**Yes, I know that they use a different directorial credit now compared to this Trilogy and everything associated with it, but I’m using it as listed in the credits for consistency purposes, and because the reason for the difference is complicated for me to go into, although it was important that I at least acknowledge it.

Thoughts on How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)

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It’s all come to this. We have reached the end of a very special journey. Most trilogies cap off on a disappointing note, but this is a very rare case where not only does every installment end on a satisfying note, but so does the entire trilogy itself. It’s an equally rare occasion when said trilogy happens to also be animated, and now we have come to the moment of truth, the movie that might just have stuck the landing, and that is How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

The story picks up one year after the events of the second movie. Hiccup, Toothless and the gang have been rescuing dragons for some time to bring them back to Berk. However, there is an unfortunate consequence to this: It’s led to dragon overpopulation.

Hiccup then realizes that there is a solution. He remembers being told as a child by his father Stoick the Vast about the Hidden World, a place where dragons can live in peace and be safe from those hunting them.

During their quest, they encounter a white dragon, a female known as a Light Fury, and Toothless instantly falls for her.

In order to find the Hidden World, and ensure the dragons are safe, though, they have to stop a notorious dragon hunter known as Grimmel the Grisly, who has a particular interest in the two Furies.

What Worked: The voice acting is the first of many things that are the best the trilogy has to offer here.* By this point, you really feel that the cast have grown into these characters. The core cast members are excellent across the board.

There are two returning actors from the previous movie who also give great performances. The one I mentioned in that review was Kit Harington as Eret, and he’s still an awesome character whose part in the series makes him one of its most interesting by the end of this movie due to his backstory alone.

Now for the character I can mention in this review that I couldn’t in that one, and that is Valka, voiced by Cate Blanchett. The reason why I couldn’t mention her there is because of who she is. In the last movie, she was revealed to be Hiccup’s long-lost mother, and there was an emotional moment between the two of them and Stoick upon discovering his wife was still alive.

Her reveal in the previous movie was so impactful because it was built up so well. Hiccup encountered a mysterious dragon rider and it was intriguing to both him and the audience. Then she found him and revealed herself to him, and it turned out she was trying to do what Hiccup managed to do in her absence: convince Stoick and everyone else that they could live in peace with dragons. Her good-hearted demeanor and compassion towards the dragons came through perfectly in Cate Blanchett’s performance, and it carries over into this movie.

Then there’s the villain, Grimmel the Grisly. He’s the baddest dragon hunter there is, and how he earned that reputation makes him the best villain in the trilogy, both of which are even more well-realized in a fantastic performance by F. Murray Abraham.

What makes him a better villain than Djimon Hounsou’s character from the last movie, Drago Bludvist, is his motivation. Drago’s motivation was a little bit personal, but more out of madness. With Grimmel, it’s very much personal because he made a name for himself with his methods of dragon hunting, which involves an important plot point established in the first movie. I thought that was a nice touch, as I appreciate when trilogies or even franchises bring something full circle.

There are other references to the previous movies, and a few of them are part of the humor here. This movie is actually really funny at times, and might have some of the best jokes in the series.

At other times, the moments of downtime in between the action sequences can be outright charming. The scenes with Toothless trying to woo the Light Fury are genuinely sweet and his failed attempts are hilarious. The relationship between the two of them is a great addition to the story.

When the action does come in, it delivers on every level. Some of the sequences here are the most intense in the series. However, they’re not as dark as a few in the second one were, but for a story like this following that up, they don’t need to be. They have some of the intensity, but also more of the exciting feel of the ones from the first movie.

Where this movie really shines, though, is in the animation. It’s the best looking the series has ever been. It shows in the character designs as well. The characters have evolved over the course of all three movies, and their designs having gotten progressively better reflects that.

The animation is so outstanding and so gorgeous here that I would go so far as to say that this is the best animation DreamWorks has done this side of Pixar. The looks of the Hidden World and the Light Fury alone are worth the price of admission.

It’s all encompassed in the best type of story that could be given to something like this. For every exciting moment, there’s a calm one, and for every sweet or funny moment, there’s a moment that’s just gut wrenching. It hits all the right notes in terms of great storytelling, which is also evident in what is easily John Powell’s best score for the series.

One more thing before I close out this review: If you thought the second movie had emotional moments, just wait until you get to the ending of this movie. When all is said and done, it’ll probably go down as one of the best endings of the decade.

Overall: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is the perfect ending to DreamWorks’s franchise masterpiece. It makes the journey with all of these characters that you’ve come to know and love throughout these movies having been well worth taking. It ends the trilogy on an ultimately very satisfying note, bringing everything together and tying up any loose ends in the best way possible. This movie has stuck the landing, and with it, in terms of great trilogies, we have been given something truly special.

*It’s so flawless that there was a recasting in this movie, and I didn’t even notice it.

Thoughts on How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

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Continuing on with this latest trilogy, we get to the chapter where most usually peak. Will this follow suit? You’ll find out soon enough. It does have one thing in common with most other middle chapters in trilogies: This one does go bigger and darker, and so the stakes do get even higher. One thing it probably doesn’t: This one happens to also be animated, and that is How to Train Your Dragon 2.

The story picks up five years after the events of the first movie. Hiccup and his friends are now young adults, and all seems to be peaceful in their village of Berk ever since Hiccup brought the townsfolk and the dragons together.

That is, until they come across a group of dragon trappers working for a psychopathic warlord named Drago Bludvist, who seeks to use his army of dragons to conquer the world.

Along the way, they encounter another dragon rider, who may have ties to Hiccup’s past.

What Worked: The voice acting continues to be top notch here, with new cast members giving great performances and returning cast members expanding their characters’ developments from the first movie.

For example, Jay Baruchel’s performance as Hiccup transitions flawlessly from the awkward teenager in the first movie to a more mature young adult in this movie. He retains the good heart and determination to try to avoid violence whenever possible, but there are some moments this time around where it can only go so far, and others where taking the pacifist approach is either not enough to overcome the current predicament or just not an option. He really does begin to feel the pressure of having to make harder decisions in life.

Gerard Butler is still excellent as Stoick the Vast, Hiccup’s father, who wants his son to succeed him as the chieftain of Berk, even though he doesn’t feel ready for that level of responsibility.

Much like in the first movie, they have very heartfelt moments in this one and there’s one in particular in the second half that’s genuinely emotional for both of them.

This one does have humorous scenes in between the drama. Craig Ferguson is still hilarious as the voice of Gobber, Stoick’s lieutenant. He has great comedic timing, an example being during that emotional moment with Hiccup and Stoick.

Hiccup’s friends also provide enough humor to lighten the mood, and they have moments that stand out because they’re on their own, and they prove more than capable of handling themselves.

The one that stands out the most of all of them, and probably gets the most development, is of course Astrid, voiced again by America Ferrera. She has gone from being Hiccup’s crush who didn’t really like him at first but gradually came to respect him more over the course of the first movie to Hiccup’s girlfriend in this one. She remains a strong female character here, with the same traits from before (tough, determined, skilled in combat) carrying over, and loyalty can now be added to the list.

As with the first movie, the best character here is Toothless. His relationship with Hiccup has grown even more. Because Hiccup is more experienced in flying, he’s enhanced the gear for both of them, like a wingsuit that allows him the freedom to fly alongside Toothless rather than always having to be on him. However, there are some scenes with them that are among the most emotional ones in the movie.

There are three new additions to the cast, but I can really only talk about two of them in regards to their characters, as the third one, at this time in my coverage of the trilogy, may be considered a spoiler.

The first one I can talk about is Kit Harington (who a lot of people will know from Game of Thrones) as Eret, leader of the dragon trappers. He’s really good in this movie, and his character is awesome. Eret’s narrative arc is very satisfying, too.

The other one is Djimon Hounsou as Drago Bludvist. He plays a lot of villains, but while he’s really good at it, this might be his best one to date. He is very angry for something that happened in the past, and he is also very ruthless as a result of it. However, when you see what happened, you completely understand why. Unlike most of his other villain roles where anger is mainly part of the character’s personality to show that they mean business, it’s a key trait of the character. He really leaves an impact as a villain because aside from the rage that an actor like him can channel into their characters very well, there’s one thing that he brings to Drago that you don’t really see in those other villains: a sense of pain.

Speaking of pain, this movie has a lot of emotional moments, not just for the characters as mentioned earlier, but in terms of the story. The first movie had mostly heartfelt moments, but that was due to a more lighthearted tone. This one also has a few of them, but since the stakes are even higher this time around, the tone has to be even deeper for the emotional moments to be more impactful. It doesn’t just go deeper, but there are some scenes that are really dark.

The shift in tone makes sense, though, because it matches the progression of character development: They are now more mature, and so the tone has to be more serious. This is also evident in John Powell’s score, which is still fantastic. It conveys excitement or intensity depending on the tone during the action sequences, deepens when the story gets dark and somber, or softens for the lighthearted moments.

It’s not just the tone that gets bigger. Some of the dragons they add here are huge. The biggest one by far is known as the Bewilderbeast, also referred to as the Alpha. If you thought the Red Death from the first movie was big, that’s the dragon equivalent of a T-Rex by comparison. The Bewilderbeast, on the other hand, is so enormous it might be the dragon equivalent of Godzilla. There might even be a parallel or two to the King of the Monsters himself*.

I have two big positives with this one. The first is the animation. It’s been improved in every way from the already phenomenal animation in the first movie. You can especially tell in the new designs of the main characters and the looks of the dragons, like with the new flight gear that Hiccup uses to ride Toothless, as well as his friends and their dragons.

The other big positive is that the scale and the world building are both expanded upon here, which makes the story of the series very satisfying so far.

Overall: How to Train Your Dragon 2 is everything a sequel should be: bigger, better, and darker. The stakes are even higher, and there are some very emotional moments. It all culminates in a bittersweet ending to where you feel like what you just witnessed was rough to watch, and yet still glad that you got to see this story continue. Much like how the first movie left you wanting to see more, this movie leaves you wanting to see how it concludes.

*You’ll know them when you see them.

Thoughts on How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

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After the Eastrail 177 Trilogy’s conclusion arrived with Glass, there was another trilogy about to receive its closing chapter shortly after it, and so I decided that would be perfect. It was something a bit more lighthearted, of course, but it’s one of those times where after seeing something as dark as those movies, you’d kind of need that*. This is a trilogy that would prove to be something special, especially in terms of family friendly movies and animation as a whole. In this review, I’ll be covering the first installment of one of the best trilogies of the decade, and the one that may stand out the most out of all of the franchises DreamWorks has made (yes, even more so than Shrek), and that is How to Train Your Dragon.

The story is set in Berk, a small Viking town on an island often targeted by dragons, where the Vikings have been at war with the dragons for a long time. A 15-year-old named Hiccup wants to help fight, but the chieftain (and his father), Stoick the Vast, believes he’s too young, so he works as an apprentice to the local blacksmith Gobber to make weapons. Though his inventions usually fail, he actually manages to shoot a dragon down. It’s not just any dragon, though: It’s a Night Fury, the most dangerous, but also rarest, type. Despite his claims, no one else believes him. Upon finding it, Hiccup has his chance to prove himself and finally be accepted by his tribe. However, he can’t bring himself to finish it off, so he frees and ultimately befriends it. He also learns through his own interactions with the Night Fury (which he names Toothless because of his ability to retract his teeth) that the dragons are harmless and sets out to show everyone else that there’s a better way to solve their dragon problem than violence.

What Worked: First of all, the voice acting is fantastic in this movie. Jay Baruchel is excellent as Hiccup, really bringing his own awkward personality into the character, and it works perfectly. You also genuinely feel Hiccup’s compassion through his performance in the more dramatic and heartfelt moments. He has great chemistry with everyone else, from his father to his friends and especially with Toothless himself.

Gerard Butler gives what might be his best performance that isn’t Leonidas as Stoick the Vast. His scenes with Hiccup are among the aforementioned dramatic and heartfelt moments, where in addition to Hiccup’s compassion, you also feel Stoick’s empathy, and occasionally pain, at the same time.

The movie has its share of humor. One example is the character of Gobber, voiced by Craig Ferguson. He’s hilarious in this. There’s some really good banter between the other characters, like Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin from Superbad) as Fishlegs, Jonah Hill as Snotlout, and the Twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut, voiced respectively by Kristen Wiig and T.J. Miller (Weasel from Deadpool).

It’s not just moments with them that are hilarious. Quite a few scenes with Hiccup and Toothless have that, but they’re set up brilliantly with some charming development in their relationship.

Then there’s the best (human) character in the movie: Astrid, voiced by America Ferrera. She’s a great example of a strong female character: She’s tough, determined, and capable of handling herself in a fight. She also has an excellent relationship with Hiccup. Over the course of the movie, she gradually begins to see past his awkwardness, learning how kind-hearted he really is underneath, and starts to respect him more.

Now for the best character in the movie: Toothless. Not only does he look awesome, he’s just so lovable. He’s like if your dog or cat could fly and breathe fire. You’ll definitely feel as if his bond with Hiccup resembles your bond with your own pets at least once. I even saw some mannerisms of Stitch from Lilo & Stitch in him. When you take the fact that Chris Sanders, the voice actor for Stitch, also worked on this movie into consideration, it makes perfect sense.

The looks of each of the other dragons and their distinct capabilities are very interesting, and it makes the action even more fun to watch. The scale of the movie, particularly in the action sequences, really shows how gorgeous it all looks. The epic feel this type of story is expected to convey (it is a fantasy movie) is done wonderfully through John Powell’s score. It gives you that feeling of excitement you’d similarly get with something like the more triumphant beats of Howard Shore’s score for The Lord of the Rings.

There is some great world building in this, too, and a perfect story structure. The narrative is handled so brilliantly that it provides both a satisfying resolution for this story on its own and a well-earned feeling of wanting to see more.

Overall: How to Train Your Dragon is one of those animated movies that does everything right. It has the right balance of humor and heart with regards to both the story and the characters. It introduces a fascinating world and sets up very interesting character arcs that you’ll want to see be further developed, because the stakes they end up facing over the course of this movie alone are just the beginning. The same is true for the movie itself: It’s just the beginning of something special.

*That’s not to say that this trilogy doesn’t have its share of dark moments, it does, except those don’t really come into play until a little later. However, this movie still has a few of them, even with the overall lighthearted tone, but they’re just not as dark as what happens during the events following this movie.

Thoughts on Glass (2019)

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Following my revisits of Unbreakable and Split, we now come to the movie that both of those have been building towards, and the review to accompany it where I hinted at something bigger to come in those reviews. Now, we get to that something bigger: The conclusion to the Eastrail 177 Trilogy, and that is Glass.

Three weeks after the events of Split, David Dunn has been tracking down Kevin Wendell Crumb (who had been dubbed “The Horde” by the media because of his multiple personalities). After their encounter, David and Kevin are sent to a facility run by a psychiatrist trying to convince them that they are regular people who merely claim to be superhuman. Not only that, but they happen to be in the same facility as David’s nemesis, Elijah Price, also known as “Mr. Glass.” David knows that Elijah has a plan to prove that people like them really do exist, and it may just involve him having some help. David has to stop them before they can do any real damage, but Elijah might just know something that ties all of them together...

What Worked: First of all, the cast is very good here, even if it’s mostly a reunion.

Reprising their roles from Unbreakable are Bruce Willis as David Dunn, Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, Spencer Treat Clark as David’s now-adult son Joseph, and Charlayne Woodard as Elijah’s Mom.

Reprising their roles from Split are James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb and Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke (the “final girl”*, so to speak).

So the question is… does this crossover work? Yes. They’re all really good here, and they do work off of each other very well. The pre-established dynamics in their relationships (David’s relationships with Elijah and Joseph, Elijah’s relationship with his Mom, and Kevin’s relationship with Casey) are given a nice continuation here, and it feels like a natural narrative flow, even up to the resolution. The best one, though, is the one that sells the movie: Kevin and Elijah. When they finally meet, it’s both genuinely chilling and so much fun to watch. Jackson and McAvoy’s team-up is fantastic in this movie, and they have the best performances. You even get to see more personality (no pun intended) from Kevin.

M. Night Shyamalan himself does make a cameo. For those who remember from the Unbreakable review when I said to keep his cameo from that movie in mind for when you get to this one, you’ll realize it applied to Split as well once you discover the first of several shocking revelations that this movie has to offer, and that one is in the first few minutes.

Speaking of M. Night Shyamalan, his writing this time around is very good… for the most part. There were moments that I really liked where they’re in the facility, and it turns out they know what makes each of them tick. I thought that was very clever. There was also a twist in this movie (not the main one; there’s several leading up to it) that was very good. It’s one of those “full circle” type moments in a trilogy or franchise that ties back to a key moment from the first movie, which is another thing I appreciate when movies go the extra mile to do. This one caught me by surprise with how well done it was, and it ties all three men together in a way that I did not expect. I’ll just say this: Elijah is a mastermind for a reason. If you thought he was evil in Unbreakable, just wait until you see him in this movie.

M. Night Shyamalan’s direction here, while not quite as great as it was in Unbreakable, is still as solid as it was in Split. He even brings over a couple more collaborators from Split: Michael Gioulakis as the cinematographer and West Dylan Thordsen as the composer. Because of this, it’s just as well-shot, and the score is just as eerie, especially in the opening. However, the score is also really good in the dramatic scenes.

What Didn’t Work: The one issue I had character-wise is actually the new addition: Dr. Ellie Staple, the psychiatrist, played by Sarah Paulson. Her performance is good, but the character could have been written better.

The issues with the writing come mostly in the third act. As mentioned before, there are several twists in this movie. The first one was really good, and the main one was decent. The ones in between are okay, but they felt like they belonged in a different movie. Here, it’s just all over the place. They were interesting, but still excessive. If it stuck to those two twists, it would have flowed better.

While those are my main issues, there is something that is very divisive and I completely understand why: The finale. I personally thought it could have been better, but as it was, it was okay. The very end of the movie (the main twist) was fine, though.

Overall: Glass is a decent ending to a trilogy, and while it has a few cracks here and there, the movie doesn’t completely shatter because of them. It’s still very entertaining in spite of its flaws. It’s very well shot and has an excellent score to accompany it. It also has some great performances, especially from Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy, and a great resolution to the whole story that brought everyone together, thus bringing the Eastrail 177 Trilogy to a pretty satisfying close. It doesn’t quite stick the landing in terms of trilogies (the next one I’ll be covering excels at that), but as far as unconventional ones go, I’m ultimately glad that we have something like this.

*A trope commonly seen in horror movies, it applied to thrillers as well with Split.

Thoughts on Split (2017)

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After revisiting Unbreakable, it was time to rewatch the second installment in the Eastrail 177 Trilogy. This one serves as a parallel to that, and when you get to the twist, you’ll know what it is*. However, prior to that, it also works as a self-contained thriller, in more ways than one, and that movie is Split.

Three teenage girls are kidnapped and wake up in an isolated area underground, with only a man named Kevin and 23 distinct personalities within him to keep them company. This proves the least of their problems, as another personality dubbed “The Beast” is emerging, just waiting to be let out.

What Worked: As with Unbreakable, and in fact the majority of these reviews, I’ll start with the cast, but not with who you expect. I’m saving the standout for last.

The first one to talk about here is the lead protagonist, Casey Cooke, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Morgan). As much as I liked Morgan (The Witch I did at first, but now I just think it’s okay), this is her best movie by far. Casey you might not like initially, but as the movie progresses, you understand why she’s so distant from everyone else. She shows that really well in her performance.

The same can be said for Haley Lu Richardson (The Edge of Seventeen) as Claire Benoit, who’s basically the voice of reason of the group, and the most likable because she tries to get through to Casey how serious their situation is. Not only that, but she’s also the smart one, showing a sense of rationality in figuring out ways to escape.

The other one is Claire’s friend Marcia, portrayed by Jessica Sula, who aside from this movie works mostly on TV. Her performance is good, despite not being in it as much. She serves as the scared one in the group to balance it out. You have the calm and reserved character with Casey, the rational one with Claire, and then the frightened one with Marcia. They all pull off their respective character traits very well.

The main supporting character to talk about is Dr. Karen Fletcher, Kevin’s psychologist. She’s played by Betty Buckley, an actress who’s worked with M. Night Shyamalan before with The Happening. Suffice it to say, she’s much better here, and you do understand her concerns with Kevin’s condition.

Last, but certainly not least, is the main character of this movie: James McAvoy as Kevin himself, and the other personalities that reside within him. He is fantastic in this. In a way, it’s a one-man show for him, and everyone else is watching. Although they don’t show all the personalities, the ones they do show have their own share of memorable moments, and it’s because of his performance in these scenes that really makes them stand out as much as they do.

Much like Unbreakable, the direction from M. Night Shyamalan I found very solid here… and yes, as with that movie, he does have a cameo here as well.

Unlike Unbreakable, for these next two movies, James Newton Howard does not return to compose the score. Instead, it’s West Dylan Thordson, who is best known for scoring Joy (starring Jennifer Lawrence) and Foxcatcher (starring Steve Carrell). His score for this, accompanied by excellent cinematography courtesy of Michael Gioulakis, best known for his work on a very good horror movie called It Follows, makes for a haunting combination. A highlight in that regard is the theme during the opening credits.

As I said in the intro of the review, this movie also works as a self-contained thriller. In addition to the eeriness of the score and the cinematography, it’s the aforementioned scenes with the various personalities within Kevin put on display here that really gives it a sense of paranoia, and a really effective one at that.

What Didn’t Work: While I did really like M. Night Shyamalan’s writing for Unbreakable, it’s not as strong this time around. There are some plot holes, and it also does kind of portray the condition Kevin has in a negative connotation, so for those who happen to have that while still being interested, this may be a major dealbreaker for you. Those are my only real flaws with this movie. Other than that, I really enjoyed this movie when I first saw it in theaters, and it surprised me just as much if not a little bit more upon rewatching it for this series of reviews.

Overall: Split shows that M. Night Shyamalan has still got it as a director after so many years of so many misfires (and one absolute disaster, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves… for now). He goes back to his roots in psychological thrillers, and in fact this movie feels like he never left the genre in which he made a name for himself.

While not perfect in the writing department, everything else just works so well for me that I can overlook it. With an excellent performance from James McAvoy, a solid supporting cast, a great score and cinematography, and good direction from M. Night Shyamalan, Split is an unconventional thriller in an already unconventional trilogy, and so it fits right in with the bookending movies in ways you wouldn’t expect. The icing on the cake comes with the twist, and a cameo a little bit into the credits which builds up to something bigger just makes the overall surprise of the movie itself that much sweeter to where you’ll want to see how it all comes together, which I will get into in the next review.

*I’ll say this: Take the underlying theme of the story from Unbreakable, and flip it. All will be revealed in the review for Movie #3, much like the Trilogy does with the movie itself.

Thoughts on Unbreakable (2000)

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While working on my review of The Butterfly Effect, I was in the middle of visiting a rather unconventional trilogy, for which the final installment was recently released. Its nickname is the Eastrail 177 Trilogy, after the event that started it all in the movie that started it all, and that movie is known as Unbreakable.

Following a devastating train crash in which he is the sole survivor (and emerges unscathed), security guard David Dunn crosses paths with a comic book art dealer named Elijah Price, who has been suffering his whole life from a condition in which his bones are very fragile, and many fractures as a result. While in the hospital, he developed a theory based on the comics he read: He is the embodiment of human frailty, so there must be someone out there who’s the complete opposite (someone who’s “unbreakable,” so to speak). This leads him to David and his having recently survived the train crash… and a series of mind games as to whether or not Elijah’s theory is true.

What Worked: First of all, the cast is excellent in this. Bruce Willis is great as David Dunn, showing that he can embody the character’s vulnerability not just mentally, but physically as well, and both aspects are really put to the test in this movie, and they each have their share of shocking revelations. The most shocking one comes with the twist, and believe me, you won’t see it coming.

Then there’s Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, who also goes by the nickname “Mr. Glass” because of his condition. Even though you don’t know it right off the bat as you would in any other superhero movie, he’s still more or less the villain here, and he makes for a really good villain at that. He’s the “charming on the outside, crazy on the inside” or the “methodical maniac” type of villain. He doesn’t play it over the top, he plays it straight, and that keeps with the movie’s “grounded in reality” feel. That’s just one of many examples of breaking convention (not the kind you’re probably thinking of) here.

There’s also Robin Wright (Wonder Woman) as David’s wife Audrey, and she’s really good here as well, having a smaller but still significant role in the story. Then there’s Spencer Treat Clark as their son Joseph, who believes his Dad is a superhero, and Charlayne Woodard as Elijah’s Mom. They, too, are the same way, but those two you’ll want to keep in mind for later.

It’s also worth noting that the director of the movie himself, M. Night Shyamalan, makes a cameo. You’ll definitely want to keep his character in mind in addition to them, as it might just go full circle by the time I get to Movie #3.

Speaking of M. Night Shyamalan, his direction is very good, and this was during the time when he was just getting started, because this was the movie he did following the enormous popularity of The Sixth Sense. His writing isn’t bad, either.

One more thing to mention: James Newton Howard’s score is fantastic, and there’s great cinematography on display here as well.

What Didn’t Work: There’s maybe some minor (and I mean very minor) pacing issues, but honestly, that’s really it.

Overall: Unbreakable is a great movie, and it’s often considered one of the best superhero movies of all time now, because of how it approaches the genre in such a unique way. As much as I really enjoyed the follow-ups to this one, I still think this is probably M. Night Shyamalan’s best movie*. Out of all superhero movies, it’s definitely among the more underrated ones. It has a fascinating premise, a great cast of both characters and actors, some very tense moments as well as some very emotional ones, and a twist that is still mindblowing even today. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend you do so, especially if you want to see how it all comes together in the end.

*His worst is kind of obvious for the vast majority, including myself… and the time will inevitably come where I end up having to cover it. Here’s the twist: I’ve seen it more times than The Butterfly Effect, yet that’ll ultimately feel less painful. That’s how bad his worst movie is (and I’m barely scratching the surface).

Thoughts on The Butterfly Effect (2004)

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Hello, everyone. For those who read my schedule post, you may remember that while I was going through the plans I had for this year, I hinted at another special review towards the end… but not for the reasons you may think.

It’s a thriller, and while you could say it’s a sci-fi thriller, it is, but it’s more of a psychological one. I normally never really do this unless it relates to something like spoilers, but I need to do it this time because it’s important for something like this.

Before I continue on with the review, I need to forewarn anyone who’s interested upon reading it: If you’re squeamish, there are some moments in this movie that are startling (as in things like loud bang sounds and shocking events that are kind of “out there,” for lack of a better phrase), dark and at times depressing (like a tragic event in the main character’s childhood, and those who have seen the movie will know what I’m talking about; all I’ll say about it is that in the parts of this movie where it does happen, you don’t see it, but you do see the aftermath, and I can completely understand people being affected by it), and pretty deep at times, too (especially one line in the middle of the movie), and they’re all still pretty messed up either way. This goes for both Cuts: The Theatrical Cut and especially the Director’s Cut. Suffice it to say, if you’re hoping to be the same type of person when you finish watching it as you were when you started, I wish you the best of luck. You’ll know why I say that in the outro, but for now, and with the reader discretion having been strongly advised, on with this review.

The subject here is named for a concept in chaos theory where one small change under any circumstances can massively alter the outcome. In the case of time travel, any alteration to the past will impact the future.

This concept, and the movie named after it celebrating its 15th Anniversary this year, is best known as… The Butterfly Effect.

The story here follows college student Evan Treborn and his friends Lenny Kagan, Tommy Miller and his sister Kayleigh, who was also his childhood crush. They had numerous traumatic experiences growing up, and to make matters worse, they would often result in Evan having blackouts. Whenever Evan woke up, he would do something he didn’t remember, and so he was tasked with keeping a journal of everything that went on.

Seven years after his last blackout, Evan is in his dorm room when he discovers that by reading his journals, he can go back in time to certain parts of his past. He also discovers that the parts of his life where he blacked out were actually moments where his adult self took over his mind. However, he slowly comes to realize that the different choices he makes in the past have drastic consequences in the present.

What Worked: The first thing I’ll get into here is actually the plot. The concept itself is very fascinating, and as with any time travel movie (or show, the most recent example being NBC’s excellent series Timeless), it has to have something about it that makes it distinct from the rest, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense. The thing about time travel is that whenever and wherever you see it, it provides some interesting “What If?” scenarios, regardless of plausibility. The way this movie puts it on display I think is very clever, and it actually shows how time travel both figuratively and literally can mess with your mind.

The aforementioned “What If?” scenarios here may not be relatable, but the main character certainly is. You do actually feel Evan’s pain at times, and for a comedic actor in a dramatic role, Ashton Kutcher gives a really good performance. He really committed to it, too; he even studied chaos theory itself, as well as psychology and mental disorders. It shows that he did his homework for this (no pun intended).

Everyone else is very good, too. Amy Smart provides the perfect counterbalance to Ashton Kutcher, and it feels like they do have genuine chemistry with each other. The close relationship between Kayleigh and Evan feels very believable because of it. It feels that much more tragic when you realize that while everyone else, such as Tommy and Lenny and even Evan’s mom Andrea, played by Melora Walters*, is certainly vulnerable because of what Evan has been doing, it’s an even bigger case between the two of them since they’ve been in love for so long. It also brings a sense of urgency for Evan to want to make everything right.

Although he’s not in it as much, William Lee Scott is still good as Tommy. He’s the character you hate for most of the movie, but at one point it pulls a 180 and you end up liking him, which is genuinely surprising for both the viewer and Evan in one line of dialogue there.

There’s also a small, but significant role in some of the events here, and that is Kayleigh and Tommy’s dad George, played by Eric Stoltz (Anaconda). It’s the same case with him: He’s good for the time he’s in it, even though you despise his character. He’s more despicable than Tommy because he’s responsible for the rough life that his children had, and basically how Tommy is in most of the movie. In fact, the two of them are each responsible for one of the dark, depressing, and pretty messed up moments mentioned earlier. I’ll leave it at that because seeing them is shocking enough as it is. Why I mention him here even with how his character is, aside from his performance, is that there’s a reason for it, which you come to realize close to the third act.

The best character in the movie is Lenny, because you really feel sorry for him the most, as he usually appears the most affected by Evan’s actions, and Elden Henson does a great job showing that in his performance. His experience here in playing the friend carrying the burden of having to deal with the main character’s actions is something that would carry over into a later role, and his best one by far: that of Matt Murdock’s best friend Foggy Nelson on Marvel’s Daredevil. He shows here that he can play that type of character really well, and it’s just as nice to see that he was able to perfect that later on.

The direction and script come from Eric Bress & J. Mackye Gruber, who previously wrote Final Destination 2. This has a similarly somewhat saturated look to it, and if that is any indication, they don’t hold back in terms of creating shocking moments. They had guts there with the kills (again, no pun intended), but here, they go even deeper, so why some scenes are as messed up as they are is understandable given that context. That applies to some of the dialogue as well.

The movie is also well-shot and paced in regards to both Cuts. The visuals are surprisingly really good for this type of movie, like the effects used for whenever Evan is reading his journals and whenever the timeline is altered and his memories along with them.

What Didn’t Work: Some moments may be a little too much for certain viewers (especially with the ending, regardless of which Cut you watch), although unlike other movies where it may be nothing but shock value, it actually makes sense. There are also plot holes here and there in the Theatrical Cut, but they are pretty much resolved in the Director’s Cut. However, the Director’s Cut becomes even more messed up with some of the events, particularly when you get to the ending. The dialogue is like that on occasion as well.

Overall: The Butterfly Effect is one of those movies where it’s so messed up to where you can’t take your eyes (and ultimately your mind) off of it. It’s not as deeply complex as, say, Inception or The Matrix, or even more recent sci-fi like Ex Machina or Annihilation, but one thing it does have in common with movies such as those is that it’s the kind of sci-fi that messes with your mind, mainly when it comes to the premise itself and how it’s presented on screen.

The thing that distinguishes it from those in terms of how exactly it plays with your mind is not necessarily through playing mind games or mind tricks. It’s much deeper, and perhaps more personal, than that, hence why I said I wish the best of luck to those hoping to be the same person when you finish it as you were when you started. Chances are you won’t be. Some of the moments that are tough to watch in particular will more than likely make you look back on the parts of your life that you felt could have been better and reflect on them because of how tough they are to watch**; you may end up thinking you probably didn’t have it as badly as the characters themselves do, or maybe even the other way around.

If it’s those moments that have made people end up not liking this movie (and there are many who don’t), then I completely understand. For me, though, I found more to like about this one than not, and for those who are interested, I’d say check it out, but keep the warning in the beginning of the review in mind if you do.

Also, if you are interested in checking it out, and you don’t already have a copy of it, it’s not hard to find elsewhere at the time of doing this review… and I don’t mean on TV, I’ll put it that way.

*She does still show up in a lot of movies, but when it comes to more mainstream ones, that’s more rare. The most recent example is something I’ll hint at until I get to the review for it: It’s based on a character who was previously played by an actor who co-starred on That 70’s Show with Ashton Kutcher.

**I would know.

2019 Review Schedule

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The preceding image is for use until I have a proper logo for non-review posts on the site, upon which it will be adjusted to that.

Hello, everyone. We are now in 2019, which means new movies and a new schedule for what the year has to offer.

Before I get started on what I have planned for 2019, there is something that needs to be addressed first: I am aware that I did not get to do a lot of the reviews I had on the schedule for 2018, and I do sincerely apologize for that. Most of them were franchises that received new installments, and while I do stand by my franchise rules*, at the same time, I realized that what’s more important is not that I’m able to cover them, but rather that I’m able to watch the movies themselves in decent enough time to ensure I can cover them as well as the new installments. I was able to do at least that, so I know I’m able to cover them.

As for what’s on the schedule…

First we have Glass about to come out, so the first new series of reviews will focus on M. Night Shyamalan’s superhero trilogy, which started with Unbreakable and continued with Split, and then I can cover Glass once I’ve seen it.

Then I’ll do the first of a few catch-up reviews I didn’t get to do when they first came out, but it’s only the two most recent movies in this franchise, so a “Mini-Marvel-thon,” if you will. That’s right, everyone: The Marvel Cinematic Universe has a new movie early on in the year (keyword on this one: Marvel). In other words, these reviews will be leading up to Captain Marvel, and those are Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Then there’s Marvel’s rival, DC, with the DC Extended Universe (as they call it). Around the same time, they have a new movie as well, focusing on a hero who also went by Captain Marvel at one point, and that is Shazam!. Leading up to that, I’ll be covering what came before: Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, and Aquaman, the latter of which I at least did the marathon in time for.

The next franchise planned for this year is likely a conclusion to a trilogy of some of the best action movies the decade has had to offer: John Wick.

Following that is probably one of the only other successful Cinematic Universes out there aside from Marvel: The MonsterVerse. I’ll be covering Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island for Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Then there’s another carryover from last year: The X-Men franchise for Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants. Then there’s Men in Black, followed by Spider-Man (possibly), the Fast and the Furious franchise, Terminator, Star Wars (another carryover from last year), and Rambo, among others.

Anniversary posts that can be expected for this year are The Matrix (20th Anniversary of the original, but I’ll cover all of them since technically it’s also the 20th Anniversary of the franchise), the 20th Anniversaries of Tarzan, a childhood favorite of mine, and the best shark movie other than Jaws and The Shallows: Deep Blue Sea. 2019 also marks the 30th Anniversary of Tim Burton’s Batman and the 80th Anniversary of the character himself, so every live-action Batman movie from then until The Dark Knight Trilogy will be covered there.

Then there’s the 40th Anniversary** of Alien, so I’ll be covering at least that and Aliens, but I might as well throw in Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, and possibly the crossovers, since the original AVP celebrates its 15th Anniversary this year as well.

I’ll likely also be doing the 10th Anniversary of J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek, so I’m including those movies as well, but as a strong possibility for now.

There is also a very special one, but not for the reasons you may think. All I’ll say for now is this: It’s coming very soon, so stay tuned for that.

There are tons of other possibilities for those, so I’ll see what I can do.

One more thing I’m considering doing for this year: A new editorial called Fixin’ Flix, where I take a franchise and evaluate where it has gone wrong in the past before giving some ideas on how to improve it from there. Regardless of when I decide to introduce it, I know of the perfect one to start with.

The other reviews I didn’t get to do last year I’m sure I’ll be able to fit in there in some capacity.

Those are the main ones I have planned for this year, along with plenty of others, so I’ll see you soon with either the first new series, that special Anniversary post, or something else.

With that being said, I look forward to bringing new reviews, and Happy New Year, everyone!

*For those who are unfamiliar, here are my rules when it comes to covering franchises:

1. If a new installment is coming out, I feel it’s only fair to have covered the previous ones first so those eager to hear what I have to say about the new one will already know my thoughts on them.

2. If the new movie in question happens to be a prequel or a reboot, then that’s an exception, and I will go ahead and cover that.

3. If it’s set in a new continuity, like for example, it’s a direct sequel to the original that ignores everything else in between (like most recently with Halloween), then that is also okay because I don’t have to deal with any potential inconsistencies or plot holes.

4. If the franchise itself has an Anniversary, then I cover at least the first movie regardless, like I did with Predator, and most recently Die Hard and Blade.

**There is another 40th Anniversary, which would be for Mad Max, but that’s a possibility at the moment.