Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom line: Another excellent rules of engagement movie.  Lots of excellent British actors and a few American ones as well.  Plus the Somali pirate dude from “Captain Phillips”.  OMG!  Sell your bread already!  Ahhhhh!

“Eye in the Sky” both begins and ends with a young Muslim girl from an unnamed (I think) socially repressive Muslim country fluidly and effortlessly playing with a hula hoop in the privacy of her parents’ yard away from the view of the morals police that patrol just outside their house.  I am so jealous of that girl.  Not for her social predicament, obviously, but for her ability to, with a tiny flick of movement, command a plastic hoop with a few ball bearings to sway and undulate in hypnotic fashion.  The purpose of this opening shot is to let the audience feel empathy for this unknown girl who, while not a key player in the drama, is instrumental in establishing the emotional intensity of the movie.  It is quite effective and an indicator of the quality of film making you are going to be treated to.

Like “A War” which I reviewed just a few weeks ago, this is a rules of engagement movie.  This one, however, has an international bent to it.  The action takes place in four different arenas; a command center in Great Britain where Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) leads a task force charged with capturing a British national who has become radicalized; the aforementioned Muslim country where said British national is thought to be and where poor hula hoop girl also happens to live; an Air Force base outside of Las Vegas where drone operator Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) is the eye in the sky for the operation; and a board room in some British governmental building where Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) is talking through a few high level officials through the operation.  As the operation continues, the rules of engagement quickly change and the rest of the movie is dedicated to that process of how/if the rules should change.

This may not sound like the basis for a 5-star movie, but trust me it is.  The resulting bureaucratic kerfuffle that erupts is equal parts maddening, comic, and endearing.  And throughout it all, there’s little hula hoop girl on the outskirts just living her life as best she can.

“Eye in the Sky” is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while and it would be a shame for you to pass it up.  it has a wonderful cast and a brilliantly told story.  Everything about it feels realistic.  Even when the story could have taken the easy way out, it continues to stay true to the world as we know it instead of the world we wish we had.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: No, it’s not THAT bad of a movie.  Sloppy?  Yes.  Lazy at times?  Yes.  Worth your time to see?  Meh.

Maybe it’s just the soft bigotry of low expectations I had going into the movie because of all the atrocious reviews, but man calm down people.  This movie wasn’t THAT bad.  I mean, it is a Zack Snyder movie so it’s going to be lazy and style over substance and chock full of outdated machismo, but it still has its moments.

I think a lot of the hate comes from the irrational dislike of Ben Affleck.  Comic geeks had it in for him ever since he was cast as Batman.  Guess what?  He’s a very effective Batman and I would pay to see him in a stand-alone Batman movie.  Henry Cavill has always been a mediocre Superman through no fault of his own as he certainly looks the part, but Superman’s not a terribly interesting superhero to begin with unless you have a good story writer which hasn’t been true for Cavill.  Amy Adams as Lois Lane is criminally underused in any practicable way except for damsel-in-distress.  Jesse Eisenberg was an effective Lex Luthor even if I don’t quite like the insane genius where the emphasis is more on insane than on genius.

Yes, there are glaring problems with the movie as many reviews have pointed out, but much of these problems are usually forgiven in other superhero movies.  Much has been said about how Lex so easily manipulated Batman into wanting to destroy Superman.  Folks, it didn’t take a lot of convincing.  Lex didn’t set Batman down that path.  Batman had pretty much decided for himself from Superman’s own actions that Superman was a menace.  Lex just kind of goaded him a little.  Now, how Batman and Superman finally face off is incredibly silly and lazy film making, but how they got to that point wasn’t.  Wonder Woman’s story line?  Held together by spit and baling wire.  And the whole experimental bullets thing was beyond stupid.  And the dream sequences?  WTF?  Seriously, WTF?  Then there’s the gratuitous insertion of scenes that set up the next couple of DC superhero movies, but that’s forgivable.  There is also the fact that the movie is subtitled “Dawn of Justice” and there’s not much Justice going on in the movie.  It refers to the establishment of the Justice League, but besides a brief blurb about Batman wanting to set one up right at the end, it played absolutely no part in the movie.

A masterpiece this movie is not.  You will also likely miss nothing if you skip the film completely.  That said, don’t be scared away from seeing it just because of all the hate springing up around it.  Yes, it is a deeply flawed movie, but it also succeeds at being entertaining if you sit back, take a deep breath, and say to yourself, “It’s only a superhero movie, not ‘Gone With the Wind'”.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: An effective telling of war and its consequences.  What’s right in war and what’s a crime?

Set under the backdrop of the War on Terror in Afghanistan, “A War” follows a Danish patrol as they do sweeps of the countryside, focusing on the actions of the commander of the patrol, Claus Michael Pederson (Pilous Asbæk).  A secondary story follow Pederson’s wife, Maria (Tuva Novotny) as she struggles back home to juggle job and family while her husband is at war.

If you can’t tell by the actors’ names, here thar be subtitles, so be warned.  The movie is in Danish with English subtitles.  If that scares you, you’re missing some great movies.  The EU is producing some great films these days.  And by “these days”, I mean the last few decades.  They’re not high budget blockbusters, but there are more than a handful of low budget gems.

But back to the movie.  Say you’re in active combat with unknown enemies.  You’re pinned down and can’t see where the active fire originates.  There are not many options, though.  You know your terrain and you know your enemy does as well.  Do you call for an air strike on the most obvious enemy position in an attempt to save your people?  If you answered yes, congratulations, you have just committed a war crime.  But the firefight ended immediately after the air strike, you argue?  Doesn’t matter.  Did you or did you not establish that there were enemy combatants in the area you just had bombed?  No?  War crime.  This is the shit people at war have to deal with on a daily basis.  This is also why countries like the U.S. unilaterally declare any male who has gone through puberty as an enemy combatant.  To protect their people in the shit.  Because by the book war crimes happen on a daily basis when a country decides to go to war and we might as well offer our soldiers some sort of protection while they’re fighting for us since we sure as hell don’t offer it to them when they return.

“A War” is a movie that has lots of questions and very few answers.  This is on purpose.  It’s meant to make you think and it does an admirable job of accomplishing that goal.  If you prefer your movies a little less thought provoking, you might want to look elsewhere.  But if you want a smart, well thought out view of life at war, “A War” is well worth your time and treasure.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Well told. Well crafted. Legitimately funny. Recommended for all ages.

I knew I wanted to see “Zootopia” when I saw a preview for it featuring a scene where they go to the DMV and it was run by sloths.  It was hilarious.  The scene did not get old when seen again during the movie.  It may never get old.  The same can be said of all of “Zootopia”.

There’s just so much “there” there.  Every scene is meticulously and lovingly put together with so much attention to detail and so much happening in the background.  Given, there’s a very large pool to choose from when you can choose from every single animal and show how they interact in the bustling metropolis of Zootopia.

Since it would be a really boring movie if it were true, Zootopia is no where near the utopia claimed in the brochures.  The entire premise of the movie revolves around both soft and hard racism and the myriad places we find it in society.  That they are able to do it in such a way that elegantly gets the point across without beating you over the head with it is a credit to the writers.  They handle the topic with both aplomb and humor.  Well, for most of the movie they do.  There’s a little bit of shoe-horning from act two to act three, but that doesn’t detract too much from an otherwise solid movie.

Another thing I am glad for is that the main characters, a female rabbit and a male fox, do not form any sort of romantic entanglement because inter-species marriage is just plain wrong.  Wait, no, I mean because that’s what every other movie under the sun does even when it adds nothing to the story.  So kudos for that.  And if a rabbit and a fox decide to get married that’s nobody’s business but their own.  Their marriage does not in any way detract from your marriage and if it does, your marriage was pretty rocky to begin with and you should really consider getting a divorce because I guarantee you your children will be better off for it.  Or maybe the producers nixed the idea of a fox and a rabbit together because they are against inter-species marriage.  It all makes sense.  Every other movie would have done it, but this movie did not.  Shame on you, producers!  A fox and a rabbit are entitled to all the same happiness that you enjoy!

Ahem.  “Zootopia” is a really good movie and you should go see it.  It has that perfect mix of humor and storytelling and morals the doesn’t come along very often in animated movies.  It will likely become standard in the collection of DVDs that breeders amass for their broodlings.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Mr. Owl, how many genres does it take to get to the center of “10 Cloverfield Lane”?  One, twhoo, three. *crunch* Three.  Wait, no, four, five, six?  WTF?

It is very difficult to put fingers to keyboard and describe exactly what you’re in for when you go to see “10 Cloverfield Lane”.  Every good description I can come up with requires revealing things that are best left shrouded.  One thing I will say is that it miraculously succeeds in keeping you guessing from start to finish.

“10 Cloverfield Lane” is about Truth.  As Agent Mulder would say, “The Truth is out there.”  But how do we know Truth from lies and how do you piece together that Truth when the information you’re fed is limited to your sheltered world view?  The answer is you don’t and you can’t, but you need some sort of Truth to spur yourself to action unless you want to supplant your will to those who claim to speak Truth.  So you follow your own Truth and you see where it leads and when your Truth shows cracks, you alter your Truth and fix those cracks and when your Truth explodes around you, you abandon that Truth all together and form another Truth to fit the new narrative.  In “10 Cloverfield Lane”, everyone has their own Truth and no one has the incorrect Truth.  It’s up to us, the viewers, to decide for ourselves what the true Truth is.  I am still unsure of the real Truth.  That’s effective storytelling.

All of that is accomplished with a minimalist cast and setting and, I assume budget.  The whole movie is basically three people; Howard (John Goodman!), Michelle (Mary Elisabeth Winsted?), and Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.?!).  ! = John Goodman is great in everything and this is no exception. ? = never heard of her but she’s in a lot of stuff and does an excellent job in this movie.  ?! = this dude looked so familiar and I couldn’t quite place it until I looked at his IMDB page and recognized him from “The Newsroom”.

It will be interesting to see if the movie holds up on a second viewing.  There are certainly enough mysteries left to piece through where you might be able to catch something you missed the first time.  Regardless, “10 Cloverfield Lane” is definitely worth a first viewing.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: About the most ridiculous terrorist plot conceived by Hollywood, but it works.  Good action and plenty of good one-liners.

On a scale of conceivable terrorist plots, Hollywood ranges from believable and real like “United 93” to patently absurd like all of “24”.  “London Has Fallen” falls far to the right of that scale.  And I mean FAR to the right.  It’s a dangerous way to make a movie because trending to the absurd can lead to loss of the suspension of disbelief, but in this case, it works.  And really, it’s worth seeing the movie just to witness the absurdity of it all and how effectively they pull it off.

The set-up is believable enough except for the whole “a bunch of state got together and agreed on something” part.  Without ruining anything, a bunch of states got together and agreed to launch a drone strike against a very powerful arms dealer who deals primarily to terrorists.  Lo and behold, they perform the strike at a wedding and all of the innocent people are killed and all of the bad guys survive.  The rest of the movie is said arms dealer’s revenge plot.

Another weird thing about the film is it’s kind of genre breaking.  It’s kind of a mix between a damsel-in-distress movie and a buddy-cop movie.  But in this case, the damsel/buddy is the President of the United States (Aaron Eckhart) and the hero/buddy is a Secret Service agent (Gerard Butler).  The two have a very good rapport together.  That might count a lot for my enjoyment of the film.

High brow movie making this is not.  But if you’re in for an over-the-top, non-stop action flick, “London Has Fallen” fits the bill quite nicely.  If I were to sum up the movie in one word it would be ridiculawesome.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: As close to perfect as you can get when you’re talking about superhero movies.  Devilishly clever and doesn’t take itself seriously.

You’re in for a different kind of superhero movie.  You know that right off the bat with the opening credits.  Starring: A moody teenager, etc.  Yep, “Deadpool” has gone meta.  Not only does the movie break the fourth wall with impunity, it also pokes massive fun of the genre itself and of Ryan Reynolds’ checkered superhero career.  It’s a dangerous stylistic move and could have failed miserably, but this movie has the right cast and the right director to pull it off.

Much of the success can be attributed to Ryan Reynolds.  He plays Wade/Deadpool as a kind of badass version of the slapsticky character he played in “Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place”, if you’re old enough to remember it.  Which I am.  Reynolds has proven himself to be a capable all around actor, but his forte remains comedy.  He just has this smarmy charm about him that lets him get away with lines that no one else would be able to pull off to the same effect.

Behind all the Ryan Reynolds awesomeness sits a very fun movie.  Sure, it devolves into the very cliche damsel in distress genre of movie and I think comedy gold was forsaken not pointing out all that obviousness, but the ride there is massively entertaining for both comic geeks and the uninitiated.  I consider myself more of the latter or maybe wading into the kiddie pool of comic geekdom, but let me tell you there are Easter eggs galore for both groups.

This movie was a blast.  You so need to see it.  You actually feel a part of the movie because of the artistic use of fourth wall breaking.  In fact, stay through all of the credits.  You won’t be disappointed if you are of a certain age.  Which is to say old.  They pay homage to a certain other super successful fourth wall breaking movie in perfect Deadpool style.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Amazing true story.  Two gripping dramas and a shoehorned love story.

There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity.  “The Finest Hours” is a true-ish story about a rescue attempt that crosses that line.  It’s one of those things where they are labelled brave because they were stunningly successful, but if they had failed there would likely have been inquests and courts martial (if courts martial are a thing in the Coast Guard) (yes, courts martial is the plural of court martial).  Basic story: A massive nor’easter hits New England causing massive waves that keeps the Coast Guard busy rescuing ships.  One oil tanker breaks in half and an intrepid band of Guarders are instructed to take a puddle jumper that shouldn’t be out in those seas and effect a rescue.

There are three basic stories to this movie: The rescuers. The doomed shipmates.  The wistful romance.  The two former are both informative and powerful.  The latter is kind of thrown in as a way to humanize the main character, Bernie Weber (Chris Pine), and as a way to fulfill the Hollywood trope that every leading man must have a love interest.  Really, Chris Pine does such an effective job of portraying Bernie Weber that there is no need to further humanize him by inserting a love interest.  Thankfully, it doesn’t interfere with the story too much and it does at least introduce a more no-nonsense woman than you would normally expect, but pass the Bechdel Test this movie does not.

There are not many movies that you can say are informative, but “The Finest Hours” is such.  There are all sorts of useful maritime nuggets that may be second nature to the New England seamen, but might as well be part of a different world to us landlubbers.  I appreciate that the effort was made to inform.

“The Finest Hours” is done well enough that it’s worth seeing.  If only just to say, “Wow, someone actually did that.”  I continue to be impressed with Chris Pine’s acting ability.  Yes there are all the usual cliches you expect from a movie about the sea, but they don’t take away from the enjoyment too much.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Great creepiness factor at the beginning.  Devolves into weirdness and then into stupidity.

The setup for “The Boy” is kind of awesome.  A young American woman, Greta (Lauren Cohan), takes the job of a nanny for a couple in a remote English village only to discover that the couple’s child is a life sized doll named Brahms instead of an 8 year old boy named Brahms.  The father is creepy.  The mother is creepy.  The house is creepy.  The doll.  Is.  Creepy.  Greta must treat the doll as if he were alive and must follow a set of rules for his care.  So all kinds of creepiness going on.

The backstory of this strange setup is provided convincingly by Malcom (Rupert Evans), a sort of odd-jobs man for the house.  When the parents leave for a long overdue vacation, he and Greta develop a purely platonic friendship which is ever so refreshing to see in a movie.  Greta also starts disobeying the rules because why the hell would you obey personal care rules for a stupid doll?  Maybe because this is a horror movie?

So of course strange things start happening with the doll.  Shortly after this all starts happening, the rails come off this ride.  The ending makes everything that comes before seem preposterous.  There’s a weird and mostly useless subplot that has to do with a controlling ex-boyfriend.  There are all sorts of questions left unanswered.  But at least we had a good amount of creepiness going for a while.

If I were to make this movie, I would have made the doll be actually possessed by the soul of the child and made the parents demon worshipers who must sacrifice unwitting nannies to the doll every couple of years. But no, I just review crappy movies, I don’t write them.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Majestic landscapes interspersed between bouts of brutal violence and hardship.

Apparently, it’s bloody, brutal life and sweeping frontier backdrop season.  First, “The Hateful Eight” and now “The Revenant”.  Not that the two movies are at all similar beyond that.  It’s just odd that two movies with both an unusual location and time period would be released so close together.

“The Revenant” takes place somewhere around the time when the United States was pushing west and soldiers were gently and lovingly maiming and killing as many Native Americans as possible while at the same time raping the land of as many pelts as they could get their hands on.  AKA the American Dream.  One such group of Dreamers was packing up their haul of pelts when an unruly pack of savages descended upon them and tried to take their Dream away just because some Dreamer had kidnapped one of the savage’s daughters.  Why can’t the savages just quietly protest in a corner somewhere where no one can hear them?  The nerve of some people.

Most of the action in “The Revenant” follows Hugh Glass’ (Leonardo DiCaprio) epic trek for revenge after he is left for dead after being brutally mauled by a bear and John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) kills Glass’ son right in front of him when his son attempts to stop Fitzgerald from abandoning Glass.  The bear scene is a little hard to watch.  I have no idea how they filmed it, but it looked pretty darn real.  Glass literally digs himself out of his own grave and proceeds to crawl, scrape, and hobble his way back to civilization and the unfortunate John Fitzgerald.

The movie is sweepingly beautiful and gorgeously shot.  It is full of majestic shots of mountains and rivers and forests and snow and ice.  At 156 minutes run time, I would guess 30 or so are dedicated to such shots.  This is both a compliment and a complaint.  It really is beautiful, but that combined with another 30 minutes of DiCaprio grunting and groaning his way across said landscapes leads me to wish that a bit more creative editing was done to lower the run time some.

There are also two fantastic acting jobs by both DiCaprio and Hardy.  Both have received multiple nominations for their roles, but I believe Hardy is much more worthy.  Watch his eyes.  You can see him processing his surroundings and searching for justification for his actions.  It’s quite beautiful.

2016 is starting off well so far.  Two movies back to back that I would definitely recommend to most people.  As with “The Hateful Eight”, my one warning would be that this movie is pretty brutally violent.  And more realistically so than “The Hateful Eight”.  It could be tough to watch for some viewers.