Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review

It's been a bumpy ride, but here we are, the third Star Wars trilogy has finished, and it's a mostly satisfactory conclusion. After the overwhelmingly mediocre second entry, "The Last Jedi," we return to the world of Lightsabers and blasters with forward momentum on energetic visual tricks, though with a regrettable backwards handle on story and script.

Ultimately every major beat is a variation of "Return of the Jedi," except only when it's completely retreaded, and that's the biggest disappointment here. Nostalgia is a powerful movie making tool, but here it's practically exploited; this is Episode 6 with a bigger budget, bigger special effects, bigger everything.

Some franchises can survive this sort of self cannibalization, like James Bond and Alien (well, most of the time), because the new cast and crew inject their view on what it means to be part of the series. With "The Rise of Skywalker," returning director J.J. Abrams and our new and returning characters appear to be going through the motions, succumbing to what corporations think fans want.

Yet the wrinkles in the returning format have some standouts, particularly the conclusion with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who's journey ends obviously but elegantly. Our heroine Rey (Daisy Ridley) does as well, packing a punch that's as emotional as it's routine.

None of this really matters in the world of Star Wars- these are space operas with a fetish for advanced special effects. And we get a lot of that here. But for all the wonderful of the visuals in a technical sense, it's style is stale; it's less of an evolution of the original trilogy and more of a continuation. Even the much-mangled prequels had their own visual identity, with imaginative aliens, starships and setpieces; the only moments here that filled me with wonder was the doomy dungeon of returning baddie Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).

Fortunately, even when the narrative driving the domesticated spectacle is old hat, there is an inescapable sense of fun. This is a film who may not know how to treat its fans, but it knows how to treat its legacy. And unlike its predecessor, the script's humor is left for the comedic relief characters- if there is a joke to be told, or to befall, it's on the likes of C3PO or something. Thank goodness for that.

This latest trilogy might wrap up a bit too cleanly, and it never seems to trust its audience's appetite and acceptance towards anything new, it'll do. It mostly fills what it set out to do, and what I've ultimately come to expect from the brand since the 2012 Disney acquisition, it's equal parts a shame and a triumph.

Cats Review

Oh my.

Those two words sum up the movie musical "Cats," based on the famous Broadway show. The problem isn't the inspiration- a lot of the actual music here is pretty good. It certainly isn't the cast, which has fresh faces as well as veterans such as Judi Dench and Idris Elba. And it isn't the budget, which according to the trusty ol' internet, is just south of 100 million bucks.

No the problem here is the use of CGI and motion capture, which has the famous and unknown actors and actresses recognizable as human on the body of hairy, svelte cat bodies. It's a disturbing effect, where none of the characters appear quite right- something's off with every movement and every song; the world has a term for it, and that's the "uncanny valley." And here, it is terrifying.

It probably didn't help that I have never seen the original musical, or really heard any of the songs (the closest thing was a brief parody here or there), so I spent any time not gripping the arm of my leather reclining chair wondering what the hell was going on! Why are some cats magical and others aren't? Why are all the large sets only occasionally proportioned to the actors? Why are all the cats oversexualized, crawling up and down each other, breathing heavily? Why does the bad guy (Macavity, played by Elba with as much grace the CGI would allow) have wanted posters around the city? (Who placed them? The cat police??) Why does the "Jellicle Ball" reincarnate the cats? (Do they become humans? Or worse, human faces superimposed to actual cat bodies.)

It doesn't matter, ultimately, the plot that is. The songs are what people came for, and they're actually rather decent (considering it's about, well, cats). Here they're sung about as good as autotuning can help the ensemble cast.

There was obviously a lot of money here, but this is an overstuffed and underbaked holiday turkey that's incredibly difficult to review: what's good is actually, pretty good. But what's bad is downright unsettling.

Generally, every movie reviewed here is rated two "stars" by default, and the number is either increased or decreased depending on many factors. "Cats" lost one of those by being, well, scary. But it's so amazingly weird that there's never even the slightest dull moment- I watched with nonstop fascination at how misguided everything was.  That's one "star" back. Congrats "Cats," you make it out of here with two. Go see it. Or don't. It all comes down to whether or not you want frightening experience you'll never forget for all the wrong reasons, just with catchy tunes.

Jumanji: The Next Level Review

"Jumanji: The Next Level" is every bit as good as I could have hoped as a sequel to the surprisingly delightful 2017 reboot. All the big stars return, as does the world of Jumanji, and of course, our heroes return to that world. Only this time Danny Devito and Danny Glover (and others) join our cast and are sucked into the realm of CGI booby traps, deserts and jungles.

The plot is merely an excuse for Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart to act not only like teenagers, but also old men and animals! What the hell was going on in the screenwriter's room? Whatever it was, it certainly was for the best, because I laughed a lot, the end. Is it as good as the "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle?" Well, no, but that film had no expectations to fill, but if they weren't going to try for anything really new this time around, they at least recycled and refreshed the same jokes just enough to get another laugh out of me.

There is a lot of comedic mileage from the Danny duo, from their bickering about when they ran a restaurant in the real world to when both the Johnson and Hart play them in the game world. It's corny and cliche sure, but I laughed, particularly at the latter's impression of Mr. Glover, who's impression of a dopey old man who talks super slow and ponders off his train of thought is spot on.

A lot of body swapping goes on here, as this next level of Jumanji introduces a new hazard, water that swaps people if they touch while submerged. Sometimes our cast swap mid-scene, and at least once they all swap places! Things could be confusing, but everyone is such a cardboard character that once they talk, or sometimes even look, you know who's who; you instantly go "oh, the jock teenager kid is now Karen Gillan- oh welp, that didn't last long."

There is plenty of new high-flying set pieces, chases and ferocious animals to witness this time around, but there is an energetic sense of humor to the action. Oh sure, it's all CGI but the important word is that it's fun. It's right up there with the likes of Brendan Fraser's "The Mummy" franchise, though not as witty as something like, oh say "Indiana Jones." Here's hoping the next Jumanji just doesn't involve aliens.

6 Underground Review

Michael Bay's "6 Underground" is a very loud and very dumb dilution of the James Bond formula, from shots of barely clothed beauties to large-scale stunt work and of course, ridiculous technology. Only it's all style and no wit, even lead Ryan Reynolds sticks with his usual cocky, coarse screen persona, as if he finds dropping the f-word a clever retort. But premiering on Netflix, the world of streaming has worked wonders for this otherwise rote retelling of every action movie cliche- it's free! Of course you have to have a Netflix subscription (or your old roommate's brother's password), but as something I checked by brain by the apartment door as soon as the film opens with a frantic, overlong and super violent chase scene, it works.

Mr. Reynolds plays One, a super-rich inventor of magnets who fakes his own death so he, and a motley crew of other one-dimensional characters who also made make-believe of their demise, can rid the world of bad people, without all the politics and red tape that come with legally eliminating bad people. Their first target is Rovach Alimov (Lior Raz), brutal dictator of Turgistan who just loves to gas the people in his country.

By the time we're properly hunting Rovach, our pack of good guys has grown to seven, each of course named after the number they joined the team. They never use their real names. They ignore everything about their lives once they "died," except for one- no not "One," as in Ryan Reynolds, but one of the seven people (this naming convention sucks), a guy named Three (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who goes often to visit his mother in the nursing home. "She can't remember a thing," he promises One once he's caught, but what's the point? Am I supposed to feel bad that his mother has some ill-defined illness? If I was, it would have served something to the plot, which it doesn't. It only slows down the drowning action.

Take a relatively early scene when One encounters Rovach at the theater, drinking at the bar. They exchange quips and instead of killing him, One sleeps with the bartender! Oh how very Bond of you One, only you're not him.

That's how most of the runtime in "6 Underground" goes, nonsensical subplots distracting from preposterous fights, gunfire, car chases and explosions. Only with the trademark "Michael Bay" style, with delirious editing, super-quick cuts that make it almost impossible to know what's happening in relation of the action onscreen. OK good guys are there, and bad guys are there, but the camera wizzes all over the place and forces you to accept that the overwrought plot is merely a skimpy clothesline for absurd bloodshed and sex. Oh sure, there is some quick mentions of politics, but it's simply another article hanging out to dry.

Knives Out Review

"Knives Out" is a mystery film that has such an eccentric cast playing even more bizarre characters that you'd swear this is a comedy, if only the script had one more pass through the joke mill. Instead things here are played with a straight face, only when it isn't, and it often isn't, but the humor often falls flat. There are a handful of zingers, but maybe it isn't a comedy? Then again, why would the family keep calling one of the character's sons a "nazi?" Of course I don't find calling someone a "nazi" funny unless they sternly sell soup on a sitcom, so perhaps it isn't a comedy? I couldn't tell.

What I could tell is that all I could think of during my screening was the 1985 gem "Clue," and while walking out of the theater I wasn't thinking "golly, I didn't think they did it." Instead I kept thinking "... is "Clue" on Netflix?"

Movies like "Knives Out" are tough to review, because to describe the plot, you could easily reveal one thing too many, but here is the gist: wealthy novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead, throat slashed clean, by his housekeeper (Edi Patterson). His large family is interrogated again by the cops by the time the audience shows up, only this time under the eye of Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), famous PI who was anonymously hired to the case after the police show their eagerness to rule the death a suicide. The story is told predominantly in the shadows of Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan's nurse and dear friend, and one of few involved who isn't a legal relative.

But the film scrubs through each of the large, and often duplicitous secondary cast, all of which have obvious motives for eliminating their father (or grandfather, father-in-law, etc.), and they all glow with excitement at the chance to play their part almost overzealously, sometimes on the verge of overacting to the point of parody, only they don't have anything particularly exciting to say or do.

What does work is how the screenplay handles the big reveal, something keenly kept out of sights but makes so much sense once Blanc (James Blanc) details it. But so what? The dad's dead, and... that's it. There isn't much payoff once everything is all said and done, except that the right person is caught and the right person gets rich from inheritance; "Knives Out" works on the technical level of filmmaking, it just forgot to include anything interesting.

Frozen 2 Review

Well here we are, it's 2019 and we're wizzed back to the icy juggernaut with a sequel to 2013's smash hit, "Frozen 2." And of course, it's breathtaking! The visuals constantly dazzled, enhanced by the 3D glasses I paid a slight surcharge for, and the songs! My goodness! Are any stuck in my head currently? Well, no, but give it time, I'm sure tomorrow when I'm at the store every child will be singing one or two of the newest ballets while I wait at checkout.

It's also darker, a more intimate affair with the beloved characters, exploited to their rawest emotions, some of the deeper animated expressions from the House of Mouse in a long time. Remember how the death of Elsa and Anna's parents in "Frozen 1" was glossed over in the beginning? Well here not only are they alive via flashbacks, but we also explore the site of their demise, as well as a few plot developments and the impacts to the dual female leads (of course leading to more than a few CGI tears shed). Ballads this time around emphasise less on grand scale and more on more the characters, choosing closeup shots over the lavish autumn environments. It's moments like this, and there are a lot of them, that bring these more mature themes to the level kids will hopefully not just pay attention to, but also understand.

Take the signature song of secondary character Olaf (Josh Gad), the dimwitted snowman, "When I Am Older." Dealing with the realizations of not understanding the world around him, it's packed with a host of visual gags, but the concept is not your typical bright and cheery noise (and thank god there are Dreamworks-esque pop song phoned in).

We follow Elsa (Idina Menzel), now more comfortably resting as Queen of Arendelle, though recently bothered by a haunting voice that hums just a few notes. She doesn't share this with her sister Anna (Kristen Bell) or Anna's boyfriend Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) (or that damn dopey snowman), but she unintentionally awakens the four elemental spirits (earth, water, fire and air) and their forced to evacuate their kingdom. This leads our foursome (well, fivesome if you include Sven the reindeer) to the Enchanted Forest, guarded by a wall of fog that prevents anyone from entering or returning.

The voice unlocks then traps our group inside, only to find lost Arendelle soldiers battling the Northuldra tribe, having done so for decades since the mist first formed. There are some vague Pocahontas vibes here, as its explained the two societies once shared a gentle alliance and the territory, only to turn to bloodshed. But the only way to end their conflict, and to calm the angered spirits, is to discover and repair history, as Elsa explains, and the cast separate on their way to Ahtohallan, a river of memories past.

I'm going to stop there summarizing the tale; I don't want to spoil anything. This is a relatively complex narrative, lacking a true villain, characters destined to fall in love, or a world to save (the only thing in danger here is their kingdom of Arendelle, hardly something Clark Kent would enter a telephone booth for). And compared against some of the upcoming animated films previewed before my early morning showing (I'm looking at you, "Playmobil: the Movie"), Disney seems to be mostly treating kids with the understanding that they're actually pretty smart.

What returns from its predecessor, aside from the glimpses of whimsy and astonishing musical numbers, is the confused narrative, which seems to forget about everyone but Elsa from time to time with its myriad of twists and turns and plethora of underdeveloped tertiary characters. I mean, does anyone remember the Duke of Weselton from Frozen 1? Well, somehow he makes a brief cameo here (grumble grumble.) It's a disperate experience when you're not caught up in the amazing majesty.

Terminator: Dark Fate Review

If there was ever a film franchise that never needed another sequel, it's "Terminator." The first two are sublime action sci-fi flicks (with the first one practically a slasher film), hell, even th 3D theme park attraction was damn fine. (Though there is some novelty in seeing Arnie return for the second sequel, "Rise of the Machines.")

But by this point, the plot, dealing with time travel, has become so convoluted, with so many timelines that this newest one, "Dark Fate," ignores everything after the second film! You know a franchise has no idea what it's doing when it needs to erase the developments established in an amusement park attraction! There is a major difference between a series like this and say, the James Bond pictures- "Terminator" is build purely around Arnold Schwarzenegger (and to a lesser extent, Linda Hamilton), not able to reinvigorate the stories with new blood. James Cameron even returns, albeit as a productor and receiving "story by" credit. So what we have here is 128 minutes "best hits" compilation, take it or leave it. I mostly took it.

Let's get the plot out of the way, because it's easily the weakest retread. Dani (Natalia Reyes) is this film's Sarah Connor (who's also here but...), a seemingly random girl who is suddenly attacked by the bad Terminator, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) but then saved by Grace (Mackenzie Davis), the good Terminator (or enhanced person, whatever). The rest is a long chance scene, punctuated by the duo's rescue by Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton)'s rescue and the trio's rescue by T-800 (Arnie, AKA Carl, a name that builds to the film's biggest laugh). There are the usual body cloning, timeline explanations, and stunned bystanders- like I said, there is nothing new in the plot department. Even the subtle variations, which are disguised as twists, come off as stale.

The acting and action, also complete reruns of the first two movies, are a lot more successful, including some decent development considering the dialogue mostly returns from earlier entries, and of course, plenty of explosions, most of which are delightful. But we came here for Arnie and Linda, who slip so easily into their most iconic roles despite their varying screen time. They say what we expect them to say, and do the things we expect them to do, and the film expects that'll be enough. It's not, unfortunately, because we don't care about what's happening around them; how can I be excited with such a blatantly recycled plot!? There are three(!) people credited as screenwriters and five(!!) people getting "story by" credit- how was there not one original idea there?!

I suppose it's silly expecting something new here, but like when I brought up James Bond earlier, those films are essentially the same each time, only bigger, longer, and funnier, only to be reset for the next Bond. Why couldn't that happen here? I guess it's because people like Arnie, and Arnie likes being liked. It's not entirely wrong to say I'm disappointed here, but I'm definitely satisfied.