*dons flame-proof apron, adjusts heat resistant goggles, puts on oven mitts* Let’s do this!

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: Two and a half hours of every teenage boy’s masturbatory fantasies. Every bit as juvenile as that sounds.

Ah, nostalgia! Clouding people’s better judgement since…well, forever. Nostalgia is the only thing that “Ready Player One” has going for it and is the only reason I can think of why so many people seem to like this movie. This movie is what happens when you take a book written specifically for adults that love young adult fiction and then water down to nothing whatever weak social commentary was contained in the novel then bulk it up with CGI and special effects. Yes, “Ready Player One” is homeopathic to its core and yet millions still claim it works as a movie.

Where to start? The Girl! Nothing in this movie pissed me off more than The Girl. In fact, all I have to say is The Girl and you probably already have her entire story arc developed in your head, but let’s dive into this shallow pool of character development, shall we? In the virtual OASIS, she is Art3mis, in real life, she is Samantha (Olivia Cooke). Is Art3mis preternaturally cute and elfish? Does The Boy fall in love with The Girl in the virtual world inconceivably fast? Does The Boy want to meet The Girl in real life? Does The Girl warn The Boy that she’s not the same in real life as in the virtual world and possibly kind of ugly? Does The Boy screw up and really piss off The Girl? Do they end up meeting in real life anyway? Is Samantha also preternaturally cute and still kind of elfish? Does The Girl have a “flaw” that makes her ugly the same way Cindy Crawford’s birthmark makes her ugly? Does The Boy get The Girl in the end? You know the answers to these questions. You knew the answers to these questions before I even asked them. That is how little originality there is in this movie when you strip away its shiny veneer.

Then there’s The World. That it is both futuristic and dystopian goes without saying. No one at this point in time is going to believe in a future that ISN’T dystopian. You mean 20 years from now, everything’s still going to be ok and half the people hate our President? Nonsense! It’s going to be anarchy and everyone’s going to hate our conservaliberfascist President. Everyone knows that! That it was painted with such a broad and cartoonish brush is unforgivably lazy. Yes, let’s stack trailers on top of each other in some haphazard way in the middle of a junk yard and only allow access via some assortment of weird Rube Goldberg contraptions. Yes, let’s make all the poor people except The Boy stereotypical white trash yokels. Yes, let’s make the villain an ultra-wealthy corporation hell bent on taking over and monetizing everything that is good and fun in this world. Ok that one rings pretty true…moving on! Yes, let’s have this evil corporation have this really weird monetization model that consists of somehow getting people into debt to them and then kidnapping those people and having them work by earning fake money in the OASIS that can then be turned into real money by some ill-defined process. I think… Maybe…

Then there’s the Big Bad. In this case, the CEO of said evil company, Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn). Never has there been as cartoonisly incompetent of a villain as Sorrento. To give you an of how incompetent, a major plot point entails him leaving his password on a post-it note attached to his impossibly state of the art and top dollar virtual reality rig that some how doesn’t have retina scans or fingerprint sensors or, oh wait, it had both of those things. Hope nobody notices! There is some legitimately funny humor in this movie (though, the stuff people were laughing about had me scratching my head at times), but with this bad guy, the epitome of humor is reduced to the virtual reality equivalent of football to the groin. Actually, I think it was a kick to the groin. And of course there is going to be a sensory cod piece for the CEO to actually feel that for…reasons? And it gets all shiny and lighted up in real life so you can know that he was hit there and it hurt! Disturbingly (and this might have just been my imagination, I am really not sure), Sorrento rips off just the cod piece and I swear they filmed it so it looked like he had an erection underneath. It happens way too quick to be sure, but I was left with the distinct impression of WTF did I just see?!?

I will admit, the effects are pretty cool and the nostalgia stuff is fun. Overblown and not nearly enough to make a decent movie out of, but cool and fun. Other than that, maybe just go play those video games and read those books and watch those movies again instead of watching this movie. Perhaps then you will come to the stark reality that most of that stuff was crap and things are much better now. Well, except for “Ready Player One”.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: An effective Cold War II spy thriller that keeps you guessing until the end.

Yay! Russia is our enemy again! Back to thrilling Cold War spy movies but now set in modern day! Well, Russia is everyone’s enemy except our President’s and a majority of Republicans in Congress, but whatever, we still get the cool movies and maybe another “Manchurian Candidate” to boot!

“Red Sparrow” is not what I thought it was going to be. Well, I mean, it was, but it gets there in a roundabout way that I wasn’t expecting. Instead of the normal “agent by birth” scenario, Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is an accomplished prima ballerina in the Bolshoi ballet company.  She is also cold and calculating in many respects. A perfect spy and a very unique way to become a spy.

The movie does a good job of playing its cards close to its chest. Because of this, it’s difficult to describe without giving away possible hints to the ending. Jennifer Lawrence plays cold and calculating well and portrays a wonderful “slightly dead inside sophistication” (1) that plays really well for a Russian spy. She has a few moments of weakness with her Russian accent (hilariously, usually when she swears), but she is otherwise perfect for the role. It would be awesome to see a “Red Sparrow II” with her reprising this role.

A word of warning, there is a fairly graphic rape scene and moments of brutal violence and torture, sometimes bordering on gratuitous, so weaker stomachs may need to look away at times. Nothing was well outside the realm of your usual deep cover spy violence, but it could still be disturbing nonetheless.

At two hours and twenty minutes, there’s a bit of fat that could be cut off the movie, but it is mostly well paced and enjoyable. There’s nothing that screams big screen so fear not if you end up watching it from the comfort of your own home. It is definitely worth watching, though, so don’t let it pass you by just because you can’t see Jennifer Lawrence as a spy. She’s a great one.

(1) Chat with Persephone, March 24th, 2018, 3:13 PM

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Good Tomb Raider. Bad script. Run Lara, run!

You would be hard pressed to find a more perfect Lara Croft than the muscle ripply, super athletic, perfectly skin toned Alicia Vikander. And she does a pretty good job of bringing Lara Croft to the screen. Sadly, there’s not much of a story for her to work with to really shine through. What you have with “Tomb Raider” is a shoestring plot designed to progress Lara from scene to scene where she is either chasing or, much more often, being chased. Some of those scenes are pretty darned cool, like the bike chase scene at the beginning for instance, but most are of the lackluster “look at me, I’m running through the jungle!” type. What this movie really needs is Jackie Chan choreographing the chase scenes. Now THAT would be a movie well worth watching.

The progression of the movie is as follows: Lara finding herself, lots of fun! Lara going on her mission, eyerolling because every problem would have been easily solved by ubiquitous technology. Lara arriving, eyerollingly damsel in distressy, Lara finally getting down to some Tomb Raiding, enjoyable. The movie ending, wow, that was about the laziest set up for a sequel I have ever seen.

What’s equally disappointing is Vikander has some pretty solid backup and they’re wasted too. Dominic West of “The Wire” fame finally gets to use his natural British accent as Lara’s father, Richard Croft, but is pretty lackluster in the role. Then there’s the villain, Mathais Vogel, who is played by one of the greatest villain portrayers of all time, Walter Goggins, but his entire raison d’etre is diluted to “I just want to get off this island”.

In the right hands, the Vikander led “Tomb Raider” vehicle has some great promise. These are not the hands we are looking for. There is just enough enjoyment in this movie to make it passable, but there’s certainly not much to make it recommendable. Unless, of course, like the video game it’s based on, you’re just in it for Lara Croft.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Not an easy book to translate to a movie, but a reasonably good job was done. A little too much CGI fluff for my taste.

“A Wrinkle in Time” was probably my favorite novel growing up. I have read it countless times. Meg was my first literary crush. So when I found out a movie version was coming out, I was excited! I didn’t have high hopes, of course, because how in the world do you turn “A Wrinkle in Time” into a movie? But still, excited. What would they do? Who would they cast? How will they mess it up? The answer to the latter is they did about as good a job as can be expected for such a complex, idea driven book. Still doesn’t make it a good movie, though.

My biggest complaint about what they did was throw in way too much useless CGI scenes into the movie. All at the expense of taking out actual story lines! There was no Aunt Beast! How can you get rid of Aunt Beast!? I have read that they actually shot the Aunt Beast storyline and decided to remove it to preserve the mood of the movie. A poor decision in my mind. The rest of the movie wasn’t even good enough for me to care at this point if they ever do release an uncut version. Ok, that’s probably not true. I’ll still probably hunt down the Aunt Beast scene and watch it.

As for the casting, it’s pretty solid. Meg (Storm Reid) was much of what I thought Meg would be. Perhaps not quite mousy enough, but her stubbornness and insecurity shown through wonderfully. I couldn’t even begin to have an opinion on how you cast the three Mrs.’s, but Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) were about as good of an interpretation as I can come up with. Mrs. Witch (Oprah Winfrey) was…meh. There was always a lot of mysteriousness wrapped up in Mrs. Witch, even fear, but instead we get a benevolent giant Oprah Winfrey. Calvin (Levi Miller) was pretty spot on. Charles Wallace (Denc McCabe)? Way off! Well, that’s not true. The IT possessed Charles Wallace was awesome! Regular Charles Wallace was way too cheery. His weirdness was there, but he just wasn’t weird enough. He exhibited more emotion that I pictured the book character to be capable of.

There is not a lot to recommend for the movie version of “A Wrinkle in Time” unfortunately. I’m not even sure there’s much to recommend for children. It doesn’t have the feel of a good children’s movie. That’s not to say the movie is bad. It’s fine. It’s just adrift in that weird Black Thing where it doesn’t quite fit categorizing.  There is still lots to recommend for the book, though! Go read that instead. Then read the other books in the series. Then read them again!

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A psychological experiment disguised as a tense thriller.

It is very difficult to come up with words to describe “Annihilation”. The only word that comes immediately to the tongue is mind-fuck. Those of you who are hoping for a classic sci-fi movie, be warned, this is definitely science fiction, but of the variety that uses its genre to tell a story that is mostly not science fiction. Yep, this is a thinker. It deals more with relationships and loneliness and loss and mortality and mental health and the definition of self. There is a lot going on here and it moves pretty quickly with ideas being thrown at you at a pace that is hard to keep up with. Perhaps that was intentional.

The story is wrapped around an extraordinary event. A meteor strikes a lighthouse and throws up a Shimmer around the lighthouse. Meanwhile, Lena (Natalie Portman), a former soldier and now a biologist, is in an almost fugue state over the disappearance her husband, Kane (Oscar Issac), who was on a secret military mission. A year after he left for the mission, he mysteriously shows back up at their house with no recollection where he’s been or how he got back. If you think it may have something to do with the Shimmer, you win a prize!

The Shimmer is beautiful and hypnotic and scary.  So much thought went into designing its otherworldly vibe. It is accompanied by a soundtrack that is half haunting acoustic guitar and half industrial gutturals. It is interspersed with moments of effective terror. The denouement has one of the trippiest extended sequences you will ever see in a movie.

The two movies are not the same, but I was very much reminded of “Arrival” when watching “Annihilation”. Both take extraordinary science fiction events and weave a story around them. Whereas “Arrival” was more about communication and language, “Annihilation” is more about states of mind and psychology. It is a very strange movie, though. Much stranger than “Arrival”. Which makes it very difficult to whole-heartedly recommend. Much like the material involved, this is more of a know thyself decision.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: Good story. Good villain. Good design. Good god go see this movie.

You don’t necessarily expect a Marvel movie to have depth to it. You go in expecting a fun little story with some comedy and wonderful visuals woven around some impossibly strong beings with imaginative backstories fighting a one-dimensional villain that is used to push the plot. “Black Panther” completely breaks the mold by combining all of the best elements of all the movies and intertwining them with legitimate and deep social commentary.

Wakanda is an extremely reclusive, technologically superior, and imaginary African country run by a monarch which practices a policy of non-intervention with the outside world unless Wakanda’s immediate interest is concerned. Wakanda has the resources and the expertise to help those around them, they just decide not to in order to preserve their way of life. Wakanda’s newest monarch, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is theoretically amenable to changing that fact, mostly because of the influence of his girlfriend, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). Wakanda’s isolationist tendencies come back to bite them when a poor decision by the previous monarch shows up in the form of Eric Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) to reclaim power from T’Challa. Killmonger runs on a campaign of Wakanda First with a side of Make Wakanda Great Again and wrests control from T’Challa.

Eric Killmonger is probably the best single-shot villain that Marvel has ever produced for a movie. His story is a bit over the top, but his ambitions make sense and his motives are clear. Plus, he’s kind of right except for the whole “enslave the world” thing. It is absolutely irresponsible of Wakanda to sit in absolute comfort while those around it suffer. Killmonger rips that conceit right open while showing the dark half of the interventionist spectrum. He also exposes the fact that blind loyalty to tradition can have chilling and devastating effects. Not bad for a Marvel villain day’s work.

“Black Panther” is also spectacularly beautiful from start to finish. The costume designs are exactingly perfect and if the people behind it do not win an Academy Award, it is a true travesty of movie justice. They pay homage to so many African traditions and put a futuristic spin on each. The graphics, too, are outstanding. Wakanda is a stunning blend of traditional design with technological elements. Afro-futurism at its best. All this is also tied together by a steady backbeat of a melange of African and Hip Hop. Basically, the entire movie exudes so much cool, you’d expect to see Jidenna traipsing in the background of each scene. Excuse me for a second while I go watch the “Classic Man” video.

I am guessing most of the arguments around “Black Panther” will be whether it is the best or second best Marvel movie ever made. Other’s number one and number two picks will vary, but “Black Panther” will be either or in just about everybody’s estimation. Except racists. And I’m not saying you’re necessarily a racist if “Black Panther” isn’t in your top two, but you’re on the same side as racists. That’s all I’m saying. Regardless whether you’re racist or not, you should definitely go and see “Black Panther”.

I would be remiss if I did not mention how culturally significant “Black Panther” is. I went to a 10:40 AM show, which is usually populated by my brother and myself and a couple of older folk who have been awake since 5 AM. This showing was in the largest theater and was probably about 80% full. And while the showing is usually predominantly White,, this was easily majority Black. I have never seen so many Black teens at a movie in my life. There was also a fairly large showing of older folk, some dressed in traditional African garb! It was a delightful movie watching experience made even better by the diverse audience. Maybe Hollywood is finally coming to realize that there is a massive audience for well made and minority led movies.