Jean-Paul’s Review: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A sprawling epic with gangsters and shootouts.  A little too much going on, but doesn’t get out of control.

“Live by Night” is about a Prohibition era Irish Boston gangster, Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck), whose libido gets the best of him and lands him in trouble with the local Irish mob boss.  What an original concept.  From there, it goes crazy.  Joe escapes the mob boss only to land in jail for a bank robbery gone wrong where police got killed only to be saved from certain death by his father who is a cop, spends years in jail, joins the Italian mob in order to get revenge on the Irish mob boss, moves down to Florida to get said revenge, doesn’t really get revenge as much as build the biggest rum running racket known to man, fights the KKK, tries to get gambling legalized only to be thwarted by a prostitute drug addict turned preacher whom he rescued from addiction, gets double crossed by the Italian mob boss and finally gets revenge on the Irish mob boss, leaves the life only to have the love of his life killed by the father of the prostitute he once saved because he kind of blackmailed the father with pictures of the daughter, and lives out his life with his son.  And I skipped a bunch of stuff too.  This is a sprawling story but it works.

The movie was written by, directed by, and stars Ben Affleck and he has a solid list of backup actors helping him including Elle Fanning as Jim’s original love interest, Brendan Gleeson as Jim’s father, Zoe Saldana as Jim’s second love interest, and Chris Cooper as the father of the prostitute, just to name a few.  Add to that, some wonderful Prohibition Era backdrops and costuming and you have a solid movie.  The only real problem with it is the superfluous stories that don’t really add much to the movie.  It’s perfectly fine to create a sprawling epic, but you must make damn sure you have a good editor if you’re going to do so.

I’d say “Live by Night” is definitely worth seeing.  My initial reaction was to give it four stars but only held back as I thought about it some more.  It is a very enjoyable movie from an entertainment point of view as long as you don’t think to much about its failings after the fact.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Three movies in one.  All work ok.  Good chemistry between Pratt and Lawrence.

“Passengers” is a fun movie but one that can’t commit to what it wants to be.  It starts with an interesting if incredibly far fetched premise.  What happens if an interstellar colony ship malfunctions and one of the stasis capsules lets a passenger out 90 years before the ship is to arrive?  You have to completely ignore the fact that any series of failures like the ship experienced would definitely wake up crew members to deal with the problems.  After all, that’s their job.  Regardless, that’s exactly what happens to Jim Preston (Chris Pratt).  What follows is your typical stranded on a desert island scenario only on a ship surrounded by 5,000 sleeping humans and all of your other needs taken care of as well.  With only the android bartender, Arthur (Michael Sheen), as company, Jim slowly starts going insane as he tries to think of ways to wake the crew or put himself back to sleep.

After a year of living alone and creeping ever closer to insanity, Jim gets company in the form of Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence).  I don’t really have much to say about this portion of the movie except that Pratt and Lawrence have good chemistry together and it’s fun to watch Jim and Aurora getting to know each other and falling in love.  Then there is this great horrible reveal that tears Jim and Aurora apart and the movie finds itself in a bit of a tangle.  There’s nowhere to go.  You have a ship falling apart and the two people alive can’t be in the same room together and they have no way of fixing the ship.  So enter crewmember Gus Mancuso (Lawrence Fishburne) whose stasis chamber also malfunctioned.  What a stroke of luck.  Gus’ sole purpose is to give them access to parts of the ship they couldn’t get to before.  That function done, he gives a nice pep talk and dies.  Jim and Aurora then start scouring the ship for what is broken before the ship goes kablooey.  Do they fix it in time?  I guess you’ll have to tune in to find out.

I have a lot of problems with the end of the movie because of the questions that went unanswered, but the movie ended so abruptly that you don’t really get to process it.  Other than that, this movie is just fine.  It’s a decent enough date movie and there’s some nice effects and technological wonders.  It’s two hours spent well even if it is not terribly groundbreaking.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A good Star Wars movie?  Yes!  Good story.  Good acting.  Good diversity.  George R.R. Martin would be proud.

The Star Wars series has has a bumpy run.  Even the most recent “The Force Awakens” was more of a fun movie than a good movie.  “Rogue One”, I am happy to say, is legitimately good.  What makes it good is that it wraps a coherent story around a series of characters with actual depth.  Even more so, what makes it good are the stories that it doesn’t tell.  How did Jyn land in prison?  Why did Saw break with the Alliance?  Is Chirrut a Jedi?  How did Baze come to be Chirrut’s guardian?  In each case, you’re given just enough context of the characters to make them whole while still wanting to know more about them.  These are all signs of a great script writer.  When you’re watching the movie, think about it.  These are all brand new characters to a vast majority of Star Wars fans and yet, by the end, you feel like they’re always been part of the story.  Admittedly, this is partly because we know where the story goes from here, but it’s still quite the accomplishment.

Another big winner in this movie is diversity.  The only white males with speaking roles belong to the Empire.  I exaggerate some, but the Alliance is robustly comprised of women and people of color and aliens and very few have American English accents.  You know, like any galaxy spanning epic would be comprised.  Comparisons to the Trump presidency abound.

There is also a lot of death in this movie.  Like George R. R. Martin levels of death.  None of the death scenes are as cool as Martin’s, but this is, nominally, a kids movie after all.  And given the story, those of you who follow the Star Wars universe should not be surprised that your favorite character is unlikely to make it out unscathed from this story.

I’ll likely see this movie multiple times.  If only to remind myself how bad the other films are in comparison.  I recently watched the end of “Revenge of the Sith” and my god is it bad.  Dialogue, acting, everything.  Can we please get a remake of episodes one through three by the script writers for “Rogue One”, Disney?  Pretty please?

Another note on 3D.  3D continues to be a waste of money and “Rogue One” is no exception.  I went to see this one in 3D mostly because I wanted to take advantage of a better sound system.  Because Star Wars.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line:  Beautifully rendered, well thought out story line with some wonderful songs and an annoying pet sidekick.  Preceded by a lackluster short.

Let’s start with the short animated film that Pixar has made ubiquitous for animated movies.  This one is called “Inner Workings” and it has a clever pitch.  What if your organs were active members in the choices you make during your day?  Unfortunately, the pitch is the only thing that is clever.  There are some inspired moments in the short like when he has to empty his bladder, but mostly it’s just a battle between the brain and the heart.  Hint: The brain wins.  As my brother mentioned, it would have been better if the movie ended with the guy ignoring his brain and following his heart and going surfing only to get eaten by a shark.  I’m guessing there’s a reason why we don’t make children’s shows.

The feature film, “Moana”, is delightful despite following the trite Disney Princesses model of animation.  Disney has once again decided to forego their traditional pencil and ink animation method for the computer generated animation that has practically taken over animated films in general.  The did, after all, pay all that money to buy Pixar.  Might as well take advantage of all that technology.  And take advantage of that technology, they did.  When you’re making a movie about island life, water is going to invariably play an important part and the computer generated water is especially effective.  Really, though, everything about the movie is gorgeous from the islands themselves, to the islanders, to the water, to the ghostly ancestors, to the animated tattoos of the demigod Maui, to the sea life.

What Disney film would be complete without songs?  The soundtrack to “Moana” is probably one of the best Disney has produced.  Of special note are the main song, “How Far I’ll Go”, which is soaring in its breadth and scope, as well as the playful “You’re Welcome” which shows off Dwayne Johnson’s singing chops in his role as Maui.

My only real complaint about the movie is the animal sidekicks.  In this one, there’s a piglet and a mentally challenged rooster.  The piglet is harmless and cute and mostly useless.  The rooster I just don’t get.  This makes two Disney films in a row that incorporate mentally challenged animals, the first being “Finding Dory” which featured both a bird and a seal.  I just don’t get the humor in making fun of animals whose entire purpose is to act even stupider than they normally would.  There is nothing redeeming about the rooster’s stupidity at all.  It would be one thing if the rooster kept doing this one stupid thing and it turns out that stupid thing ends up saving the day, but nope, just a stupid rooster doing stupid things and having jokes about it being eaten thrown at it by Maui.

Regardless of my petty complaints, this is a very solid movie.  Its story is engaging for both adults and children and there are elements that will be enjoyed by both throughout.  It also helps that Lin-Manuel Miranda of “Hamilton” fame both wrote some of the songs and sang a few in the movie.  Or at least for me.  I’m a little obsessed with “Hamilton”.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: Either a poorly done love story that wants to be a spy story or a poorly done spy story that wants to be a love story.

“Allied” opens with Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) parachuting from a plane somewhere over the deserts of northern Africa.  The camera pans and rolls and moves through the fabric of the parachute as Max floats to the ground.  This is the first in a series of really weird camera views interspersed throughout the movie.  As if the director can bring some sort of liveliness to the movie to a pedestrian movie through camera stunts.  And pedestrian is the right word because we’re then treated to Max walking through the desert for 5 minutes.  Yep, pacing is going to be a problem in this movie.

Max is a Canadian spy and he’s in Africa to meet up with his “wife”, Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard), a French resistance spy, so they can assassinate a Nazi ambassador.  Because that’s how you win wars, by assassinating random ambassadors.  Their master plan is to snag a rare invitation to a heavily armed and secure party for the ambassador, hid guns under the drinks table, and flip over the table and shoot up the place when the ambassador arrives.  This plan somehow works.  Oh, and they also fall in love in the short period of time they are together even though most of the time is spent talking about how falling in love is stupid for spies.

Fast forward a few years and they’re married and have a one year old child.  But what’s this?  Marianne may be a Nazi spy?  The real Marianne Beausejour was reported killed?  What’s a doting husband to do with this information?  This could make for a good movie!  But instead, we’re treated to Max doing a bunch of stupid things to try to prove her innocence.  There is some intrigue that makes for some decent suspense, but that doesn’t last too long because of the absurdity of the whole Max side of the story.  Then there’s the ending which is ridiculously drawn out even though you know exactly how it must end.

Was Marianne a spy?  I guess you’ll have to not watch the movie and not find out.  Because really, you shouldn’t see this movie.  It is mostly lifeless except for the acting ability of the two stars.  Such a shame because a double agent wife has such great possibilities and they are mostly spoiled in this movie.