Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A fascinating look at Cold War political intrigue.  Directed by Spielberg and written by the Coen brothers!?

“Bridge of Spies” is more two hour long episodes in a TV series than it is one movie.  The first episode shows insurance lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) being called by his nation to defend Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel (brilliantly played by  Mark Rylance).  Instead of putting up a half-hearted defense of the almost assuredly guilty Abel, Donovan enacts a full-throated Constitutional defense of the spy much to the chagrin of the rest of the country.  Donovan represents everything that is right with the United States while the rest of the country represents everything that is wrong with the United States.  This is just one of many examples in our history of how we fetishize the Constitution until it becomes inconvenient to do so.  Then we just throw it away until it no longer poses the inconvenience.  A true test of a belief is when it becomes inconvenient to believe it and we fail miserably at those tests all too often.  There is kind of a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” feel for this half of the film with the one good and unassuming person against the establishment.  Only not quite as comical.

Episode two has Donovan returning to some sort or normalcy when his nation calls upon him once again.  This time, he has to negotiate a spy swap between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.  The swap is between Abel and shot down U-2 pilot Gary Powers.  Donovan goes to Berlin and travels back and forth between East and West Berlin to broker the deal.  This is more of a spy/political intrigue episode as we see how three vying factions work things out to make the trade.  Once again, Donovan bucks authority and bargains for a third person to be released.  And once again, Donovan is fighting to do the right thing while his country simply wants him to do the expedient thing.

I was amazed, as the closing credits rolled, to find out that this was written by the Coen brothers along with Mark Chapman.  I was thinking why they wouldn’t advertise that and the answer immediately hit me that this is not a Coen brothers movie and advertising it as such would only lead to disappointment.  Putting Spielberg’s name along with Tom Hanks was the correct choice.

I highly recommend this movie for anyone who is a Cold War buff.  Or history in general.  I’m not sure how true to life the movie is, but Donovan should certainly be looked upon as one of the greatest Americans of the time.  He took on challenges no one else would and defended the Constitutional ideal to the best of his abilities.  Who could ask for anything more?

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Starts strong. Finishes with Vin Diesel “acting”.  Should be called “The Last Witch Follower”.

Yet another great premise ruined by bad writing.  And bad acting.  And little action.  And Vin Diesel.  I mean, wow, is Vin Diesel a bad actor.  Yes, this isn’t much of a surprise, but they made the mistake in this movie of putting him in the same scenes as people that can act.  I was surprised to see both Michael Caine and Elijah Wood in the movie and thought that boded well for the quality.  I was wrong. They just made Vin Diesel look all the worse.

The premise is pretty cool.  It is a world of humans and witches.  In the distant past, witches don’t much like the humans and attempt to unleash the Black Plague on the world thus killing off the humans.  A band of Witch Hunters travel to the heart of the Witch Queen’s lair to do battle with her and bring her evil schemes to an end.  The sole survivor of the battle, Kaulder (Vin Diesel), successfully kills the Witch Queen only to have her curse him with immortality as she dies.  Fast forward to present day and the still immortal Kaulder now occupies a world where the humans and witches have struck a pact to live peacefully together and Kaulder now plays the role of detective, hunting down witches who break the pact and bringing them before a Witch’s Council that pass judgement.

It’s a great setup.  the problem is there’s no follow through.  Very little actual hunting occurs.  The action follows this sort of setup:

Vin Diesel: Hi there, I can’t act.

Witch: Oh, you’re the scary Witch Hunter.

Vin Diesel: Damn skippy. You have no idea what powers you hold please be careful.

Witch: I see the errors of my ways.  Thank you.

Vin Diesel: Now I must be off for I have other witches to talk to and scare with my mere presence.

I am being slightly unfair.  There is also this setup:

Vin Diesel: Yep, still can’t act. Also, I am surprisingly trusting of witches and their magic and thus must fall asleep from the spell the witch puts on me thus putting me in great peril.  I sure hope Ygritte from “Game of Thrones” (Rose Leslie) can save my ass from this evil witch.

Ygritte: You know nothing Vin Diesel.  And boy, you really cannot act. You make me look like Michael Caine in comparison.

Michael Caine: Well, he does only because the geniuses who wrote this script decided to make me die almost immediately upon being introduced.

Elijah Wood: But then I take your place and the script writers also decide to criminally underutilize me as well and then when they do use me they give me this completely out of left field plot twist that makes no sense.

Ygritte: Guys?  This is a movie, can we please get on with it, I’m about to save Vin Diesel’s ass.  Again.

Michael Caine: Isn’t it really better this way?  You know, him asleep and all?

Ygritte: Point taken, but unlike you and Elijah, I still need to make a career for myself and this could be my big break.

Elijah Wood: Let her be, Michael.  We were both here once too.

Michael Caine: *sighs* Fine, hobbit, have it your way, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ygritte: Thanks.  Ok, get up you sorry excuse for an action star.

Vin Diesel: Here I am, what did I miss?

The biggest problem is this is a movie that seems to want to look pretty more than it wants to express any coherent plot.  This would be all fine and good if half the looking pretty involved some ass-kicking of witches.  That key ingredient is, alas, lacking.  Sad to see another good premise go to waste, but at least I’ve now seen this movie so you don’t have to.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: A funny, suspenseful, gripping drama chock full of SCIENCE!

Matt Damon should really never travel outside of his immediate surroundings.  Between “Saving Private Ryan” and “Interstellar” and now “The Martian”, things don’t go well for him when he travels more than a few thousand miles from home.  This time he needs rescuing from Mars.  Only problem is everyone thinks he’s dead.  Ouch.  So, yeah, step one, let N.A.S.A. know you’re alive.  Step two, survive for the thousand or so days it will take to launch a rescue mission.  Step three, profit?

I was a bit worried going in to the movie that we’d just be getting another “Castaway” only with Matt Damon talking to volleyballs on Mars instead of Tom Hanks on a deserted island.  Luckily, that worry was cast aside early as proof of life of Mark Watney (Matt Damon) was quickly reestablished with N.A.S.A. which enabled a pleasant back and forth of Watney vying for survival against the inhospitable Mars and N.A.S.A. trying to figure out if and how to get Watney back.  And, boy, do each of them have a boatload of problems to solve.  This is where the movie shines.  It makes science both informative and entertaining like few other movies have been able to do.  My favorite is the surprise guest appearance of a certain legendary vehicle that is used in an ingenious way to solve one of the bigger problems that Mark Watney has.

If I had to come up with one complaint about the movie, it would be that the final rescue was a tad too Hollywood-ish.  I get that you want to eke out every last drop from the suspense sponge, but a series of unfortunate events rarely leads to a pleasant outcome.  The sheer amount of things that had to go perfectly to counteract the unfortunate events was so daunting that it made the rescue a little roll-your-eyes.  But what do you expect?  Of course it’s going to be like that.  The trick will be if the book is like that too.

I probably liked this movie a lot more than I should have, but I am a sucker for well written science packed (and accurate-ish) movies.  With some rare exceptions like the insta-pressurizing airlocks which were obviously done for ease of film making, I can’t really come up with any glaring science flaws upon first watch.  And there were definitely be multiple watches of this movie in the future.  Now on to the book which I was hoping to get to before watching the movie.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Slow start. Good finish. Some awe inspiring shots of Everest.

In 1996, a bunch of really stupid people paid an exorbitant amount of money to a handful of hot-shot experienced mountain climbing guides who made decisions that were detrimental to the safety of their clients and eight of them never returned, including three of the guides.  This is their story.  Dun-DUN.

When I first saw a preview for “Everest”, I thought that they were finally making Jon Krakauer’s wonderful book, “Into Thin Air”, into a movie. I was wrong.  Well, kind of.  You see, “Everest” does, indeed, tell the same story as the true-life account retold by Krakauer in his book, but the movie is not associated with Krakauer or his book despite the fact that Krakauer was actually on that fateful climb to the top of Everest and he is a character in the movie.  This reeks of Hollywood shenanigans, but I suppose there’s no copyright on real life events.

As explained in the movie, you are quite literally dying on the final leg up to the top of Mt. Everest.  Why would anyone want to put themselves through this?  Because it’s there.  But also, my god is Everest beautiful.  I’m sure the beauty of the mountain is farthest from the minds of climbers as they’re suffering their way up the mountain, but its sheer magnificence must be at least part of the reason people with too much money flock to the top of Mt. Everest.  This is one of those movies where the backdrop becomes one of the characters.  Seeing “Everest” on the big screen is worth it just for the mountain.

A movie like this requires a lot of setup.  There is a large cast of characters and it takes time to get to know them, but you need to know them in order for the final act to have any personal meaning at all.  This makes the beginning a bit slow.  It’s worth it, though.  The payoff is big and it is interesting both how much preparation is made into getting the clients up the mountain and how much silly bravado is exhibited by many of the climbers.

Things don’t get really interesting until the climbers finally reach the summit.  Then all hell breaks loose as what was a climbing movie with the mountain as a protagonist becomes a rescue movie with the mountain as an antagonist.  It’s a combination of a bunch of really dumb decisions, horrible miscommunications, and bad luck that led to the results of that day.  It is shot beautifully with no punches pulled.  The most harrowing part of the movie comes from an absolutely insane helicopter rescue attempt that requires a special amount of stupid to even consider let alone try.

You want to see “Everest” in the theater mostly for the absolute beauty of the scenery.  If you are going to wait until it hits homes, be sure to crash a friend’s house with a nice home-theater system to watch it.  Either way, this is a movie well worth seeing.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Wants to be a good movie but doesn’t quite get there.  One bad casting choice.  Decent premise and fun, light action.

I have no recollections of watching “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” reruns as a child even though I remember it being on and absolutely loving “The Avengers” (no not THOSE Avengers) reruns.  This means I really didn’t know much about the premise of the show going into the movie besides the fact that it was one of many spy shows from the 60s and my mom liked it.

The movie version is an origin story.  Set in the post-World War II era when the Cold War was just getting started, it follows he of the best spy name ever, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) as he is sent on a mission to rescue Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) from East Berlin before Russian spy Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) gets to her.  Gaby is the daughter of a German nuclear scientist who recently turned up after being AWOL for years and both the U.S. and Russia want their hands on him.  All three end up having to team up to find the man after it is discovered that a shadowy organization plans to use his nuclear knowledge for their own devices.

This is a Guy Ritchie film and it shows.  Very stylistic.  Very cool.  Very nonchalant.  This works out pretty well except for Henry Cavill.  At time, Cavill pulls it off nicely.  Like when he stops for a snack break inside a truck while his unwilling partner, Ilya, is chased by guards only to step in and save him in the nick of time.  At other times, Cavill is kind of off-putting.  It has something to do with his voice more than his mannerisms, I think.  He never quite strikes that devil-may-care attitude with his talk.  It was, at times, hard to get past.

The movie ends with a very obvious sequel setup as the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement is formed.  What a mouthful.  We’ll stick with U.N.C.L.E.  Sadly, I do not foresee a sequel in this franchise’s future.  It did pretty poorly at the box office.  That’s kind of a shame as the whole premise for it is quite good.  You have the whole East/West tension thing going on.  Plus each of the main characters are interesting in their own right to be able to dig some good stories out of them.  It’s also nice to have a spy movie that obviously doesn’t take itself too seriously without being silly.  Oh well.

You will like this film if: You like light spy action films.  You have nostalgia for the TV show.  You like Guy Richie-style movies.  You enjoy caper-ish plots.

You will not like this film if: You dislike Henry Cavill.  You think any sign of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia is a sign of the imminent destruction of democracy.  You think spy films should be serious as sin.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: The second best chase movie of the year.  Lots of good suspense and action.

Every chase movie ever made from this point on will have to be compared to “Mad Max: Fury Road” which is a chase masterpiece.  “No Escape” is no “Fury Road” but it is still a worth while movie.  The premise is an interesting one.  Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson) and his family relocate to Unnamed Asian Country for Jack’s job and happen to arrive just as a coup erupts.  The coup is in reaction to corporate malfeasance of Jack’s company which makes Jack and the other expatriates target number one for the angry mob’s wrath.  The Dwyers must thus escape from the angry mob to safety.

What makes “No Escape” a bit different than most chase movies is the Dwyers have two small children who they must cart around.  Yes, the children are used mostly as props, but they are used very effectively and believably as props.  There is one scene in particular where Jack must throw his children across a chasm between two buildings that is heart-in-your-throat chilling.

The one major failing of “No Escape” is its use of Hammond (Pierce Brosnan), an obvious intelligence officer of some sort who ends up helping the Dwyers escape because he helped Jack’s company infiltrate the country thus causing the conditions for the coup.  Hammond is actually a good character story wise until he explains that he’s helping the Dwyers because he feels guilty and wants to correct a wrong when it could have totally worked to say that he was just doing his job of making sure that people under his protection safely made their way out.  And it certainly would have made it possible for them to skip the most roll-your-eyes moment of the movie which kind of ruined the end.

Despite its imperfections, “No Escape” is a fun movie and brings its own unique spin to the genre.  It’s certainly worth a lazy couch day watching.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Delightful story and well acted.  A good combination of intrigue and lightness.  Plus, it’s Sherlock Holmes!

It is sometimes strange how two unrelated yet so similar works of art fall into your lap within a short period of time.  Neil Gaiman’s “Trigger Warning” book, which I recently finished reading featured a Sherlock Holmes short story called “The Case of Death and Honey” which took an older Sherlock Holmes and sent him to China after the death of his brother Mycroft looking for bees that may provide the secret to everlasting life.  Not two weeks later, I see “Mr. Holmes”, a story about a retired Sherlock Holmes who travels to China to procure a royal jelly only produced by bees that feed on a specific type of flower which gives the imbiber a more clearly focused mind.  The two are different enough in content but too eerily similar in a number of details for there not to be an influence.  The influence would be on Gaiman in this case as his story was first published in 2011 as best as I can tell and the book “A Slight Trick of the Mind” (on which “Mr. Holmes” is based) was published in 2005.  I don’t recall Gaiman citing “A Slight Trick of the Mind” as an influence, but it wouldn’t have meant anything to me when I read Gaiman’s story.

“Mr. Holmes” is about how much it sucks to get old.  Sherlock Holmes languishes in retirement with his bees in a cottage in the countryside where he is taken care of by a housekeeper and her son.  In the early stages of a mind wasting disease, he spends much of his time trying to recollect his final case which he believes caused him to go into retirement. The story is really a mystery within a mystery as Holmes both tries to piece together the fragments of his brain while also trying to piece together the facts of his final case at the same time.  What a drag it is to get old. He finds in the housekeeper’s young son a kindred spirit and someone to whom he can pass on a bit of his legacy.  Through the kid, Holmes recovers some of his own humanity.

I remember coming out of the theater and saying to my brother, “That was delightful.” And that word really sums up “Mr. Holmes” nicely.  Sherlock Holmes is played by Ian McKellen who needs to make a billion more movies before he dies.  Either that or get into infinite hijinks with Patrick Stewart.  It is because of McKellen that I say the movie was delightful. Very few actors have his range an depth.  He has support by Laura Linney who plays the housekeeper, Mrs. Munro, and Milo Parker who plays her son, Roger.  Milo Parker, despite having only a handful of credits to his name, none of which are even familiar to me, has one of those faces that makes you absolutely sure that you’ve seen him in something before.  It’s disconcerting.There have been many a final story written about the great Sherlock Holmes.  I think none are as fitting as “Mr. Holmes”.  Sherlock Holmes was brilliant and above all others in intellect, but in the end he was human subject to all the frailties of any other human and longed for human contact just like any other human.  It’s a little sad and a little inspiring and well worth your time.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line:   A well developed, well told biopic of the genre defining rap group NWA. Some great music and good acting.  Becomes a little lost in the last act.

I was a high schooler when NWA’s debut album, “Straight Outta Compton”, first came out.  Besides all the controversy surrounding the group, the music pretty much wasn’t on my radar.  I remember being more amused by the lyrical battles between Ice Cube and NWA (which are awesome!) than enjoying their other social commentary stuff (which is also pretty good).  This movie spans the forming of the group up to shortly after the death of founding member, Easy-E when NWA was getting back together to tour.

Much ink has been spilled over the glossing over of history in the movie, but I think it’s as fair as possible given that there is only so much that can be put in two and a half hours.  The members of NWA are shown as human beings who both did things wrong and right.  Yep, both they and their lyrics were misogynist.  Yep, both they and their lyrics were violent.  What’s surprising is how little ink I’ve seen spilled over how topical NWA’s socially conscious lyrics continue to be two and a half decades later.  What’s even more surprising retrospectively is how much white America feared a bunch of young kids blowing off steam by using one of the only creative outlets available to them.

The movie gets a little lost when it gets into the handling of the Rodney King beating and subsequent not guilty verdict of the LAPD police officers.  It figures prominently in the movie, but there’s not much except looks of incredulity offered by the band members along with a really weird scene of them driving slowly through the riots that ensued after the verdict came in.  I’m sure their reactions were much more emotional than what was portrayed and I think the director missed a good opportunity to use a universal historical moment to help non-blacks understand where the rage from their lyrics comes from.

There is also some decent acting in this movie from relative unknowns (and Paul Giamatti).  Throughout the movie, I found it eerie how much the actor who played Ice Cube looked kinda like him but not quite only to find out from the credits that it was his son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., who had never acted before this role and who you can see growing into the role as the movie progressed.  I especially liked Jason Mitchell as Easy-E, who in the beginning of the movie I couldn’t get out of my head how he looked kind of like a young Dave Chappelle.  Corey Hawkins played Dr. Dre very effectively as well.  I would not be at all surprised if this movie kick starts all of their careers.

If you remember the days of NWA, you should certainly see this movie.  If you want to see how little has changed in so many years, you should definitely see this movie.  If you like biopics and especially ones about musicians, you will not be disappointed in this movie.  It has that rare combination of entertainment and information that doesn’t come often.

Oh, and I also discovered that Suge Knight is still alive.  I thought he was killed.  He’s only been shot half a million times and survived it all.  Dude has nine lives, most of the rest of which will probably be served in jail.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A well put together spy thriller.  Plenty of suspenseful action.  More of a buddy film than a team film.

The Impossible Mission Force (IMF) is back and this time they’re fighting to take down a shadow force of anti-IMF agents called the Syndicate determined to reshape the world into something something pretend I’m saying something that makes sense by performing all sorts of heinous deeds.  Yeah, the whole plan for what the Syndicate is trying to accomplish is kind of vague, but that can be forgiven because the rest of the movie is pretty solid.

There is not really an IMF this time, it having been disbanded early in the movie.  What we have is Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) going all rogue (though not the rogue in the title) in an effort to find out what the Syndicate (the rogue in the title) is up to.  Ethan eventually gets Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) to help him in his shenanigans, but that’s mostly it.  The other regulars are more thrown in for exposition in the case of William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) or for “oh am I in this too?” for Luther Stickwell (Ving Rhames).  There is also the femme fatal, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who you are never quite sure what side she’s fighting for.  The result is a streamlined spy thriller with a surprisingly tight plot.

What I liked best about the film was the way it used technology.  Most spy thrillers use technology as a means of overcoming human adversaries.  In this film, it is used almost entirely to only overcome other technology, with a little bit of flash thrown in.  The race to use that technology often requires action sequences where it is up to the human to fight against the technology mono-a-machineo.  This makes for a much better film than using technology to save the day or the ample use of fake masks that occurred in the other “Mission: Impossible” films.

There is much to like here and much to recommend.  This is a movie that doesn’t really slow down much for its entire 131 minutes running time.  The result is leaving the theater with a feeling of time well spent.  I can’t really see any fans of the genre being disappointed in the movie.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 1/5 stars

Bottom Line: The amount of good material in this movie adds up to about five minutes.  The rest ranges from mildly interesting to “oh, get on with it already”.

Longest.  Origin story.  Ever.  Why, oh why did we have to sit through a half hour of Reed Richards and Ben Grimm becoming bestest buds in grammar school?  Who thought that was a good idea?  You want to establish that they’re best friends?  Do a five minute back and forth between the two of them prior to their high school science project.  But that would have required someone who could write.  Which this movie didn’t have.  And we’re only half way through the origin story at this point.  Another half hour or so is spent introducing Sue and Johnny Storm and Victor Von Doom.  None of them are interesting.  Well, maybe Von Doom is a little interesting, but his story is completely glossed over and it’s only interesting because you fill in the blanks yourself.  Then finally, FINALLY, they become the Fantastic Four.  And are immediately captured and tested on for a half hour.  Then they fight Dr. Doom for ten minutes and the movie’s over.

So yeah, don’t waste your time.  It’s barely worth writing this review.  There hasn’t been a good Fantastic Four movie yet and, in fact, they keep getting worse.  Marvel had quite a good streak going and they blew it.

Now, let’s talk about how chicken shit Hollywood is.  Spoiler warning for all you racist comic book dweebs.  Johnny Storm is black.  *gasp*  Yes, there are a lot of people pissed off about that.  Welcome to post-racial America.  Actually, I’m pissed off about that too.  Not because Johnny Storm is black, but because Sue Storm is white.  She was adopted, you see, and they have a very cringe inducing scene where they explain that.  Heaven forbid two of the four heroes are black!  And we couldn’t possibly have a mixed race relationship between Reed Richards and Sue Storm in this day and age.  Too many racists would need to be led to the fainting couch and given smelling salts.  And every movie needs its pretty white woman.