”The A-Team” Movie Review

    “The A-Team” was a film based on one of my favorite television shows as a kid.  It was a fun show and it clicked with audiences in the 1980s.  I remember having A-Team toys and Mr. T seemed like he was everywhere, he was even on cereal boxes!  The cultural impact of “The A-Team” can’t be ignored.

    The basic story of the movie tells the origins of The A-Team which was narrated over the opening credits of the television show.  A small group of soldiers were ordered to do an illegal mission, the mission backfired and then they were convicted of a crime they didn’t commit.  The soldiers promptly escaped and set out on a mission to clear their name.

    The cast is led by Liam Neeson who takes over the role of Hannibal, the leader of the team.  He looks the role and has a natural command over the audience so you believe he could be a Colonel.  Bradley Cooper portrays Lieutenant“Faceman” Peck.  For such a skilled actor, Cooper doesn’t do much to make the character feel layered.  “District 9” breakout Sharlto Copley gives the film’s most faithful performance as “Howling Mad” Murdock.  His unstable performance seems lifted straight out of the show.  As for B.A. Baracus, UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson took over the role from Mr. T.  The problem with the character of B.A. Baracus is that Mr. T was so closely associated with the role that it’s hard to separate the actor from the character.  Jackson doesn’t have the screen presence Mr. T had.  Jackson also isn’t the best actor for a lead role.

  The modern setting is part of the problem with the movie in my opinion.  In a post Vietnam world of the 1980s, potentially living under the radar was more feasible. It was unrealistic that a group of ex-soldiers could survive as “soldiers of fortune” in the underground even back then. It is practically impossible nowadays.  The Vietnam War setting was also important because it acted as a sort of allegory to how all the veterans of that war felt.  They came home and felt out of place, accused of being criminals over a conflict they were forced to participate in.  Now, veterans are considered heroes, there is no draft, and generally speaking, there are a lot of good programs out there to help veterans out.  We live in a different world today partly because of Vietnam.

    The television show wisely skipped over the part depicting the team’s “crimes” because that isn’t, for the most part, what the show wanted to focus on.  It was a show about a group of misfits who help the helpless.  The movie should have followed suit.

Grade: C

”Christopher Robin” Movie Review

   I am not the world’s biggest fan of Winnie the Pooh but I always thought the characters were cute and had a charm.  Winnie the Pooh is a loveable honey addict who is the best friend to human child Christopher Robin.  Christopher Robin spends much of his youth with Pooh and the gang.  The movie startes off with the symbolic scene of Christopher Robin having to say goodbye to Pooh and his friends.  The scene is emotional and depicts the sense of having to put childish things away as we grow up.  This wasn’t going to be the typical silly Winnie the Pooh movie from the get go.
    From that scene on, the movie almost becomes a study of our entrance into adulthood and our need to leave childish things behind.  Do we really need to let go of everything even if it brings us joy?  Does it even make us a better person?  Christopher Robin was always a creative child, why not use that vast imagination as an adult and spread some good will?
    From the moment Christopher Robin accepts adulthood, he buries his joy deep inside.  He goes to war and gets a dull office job because that was what was expected of him.  Not all of us are made to be what the world expects however.  Christopher Robin certainly wasn’t.  Yet, he told himself he had to live such a life.
    “Christopher Robin” also uses the issue of PTSD as a way of getting the audience to question the reality of what is going in.  Can the rest of the world see Winnie the Pooh?  Is Christopher Robin suffering a nervous breakdown?  There are some interesting  questions the movie starts to explore but abandons towards the end.
    Even though I think there might have been an interesting story to be told if Christopher Robin’s sanity was called into question more, that isn’t to say it’s a bad film.  This is a Disney movie after all, it can’t be too dark.  This film was actually a little more adult themed than I thought it would be but kids will still find things to enjoy. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and the rest of the gang are adorable and I love their designs.
    The film felt like a mix of “Finding Neverland” and “Hook” which is funny since Marc Foster directed both “Finding Neverland” and “Hook”.  Ewan McGregor did an  incredible job as Christopher Robin.  The movie relied so much on his believability and he made the film work.  The voice cast was also spot on for the characters.  It’s ironic that “Christopher Robin” comes out right on the heels of “Goodbye Christopher Robin”, a film about the life of A.A. Milne and how his son inspired the character of Christopher Robin.
    “Christopher Robin” is a cute film but may sway to a slightly older audience than the trailer might imply.  Regardless, this movie does a great job of showcasing why so many people around the world still adore Winnie the Pooh.

Grade: B+

“The Cloverfield Paradox” Movie Review

    The Super Bowl last year offered audiences the first trailer for the secretive next chapter in the “Cloverfield” franchise.  I remember I was excited to watch the trailer on YouTube because I had been waiting awhile to hear anything new about the film.  Then the real surprise happened hit at the end of the trailer.  The movie wasn’t going to hit theaters, instead it was going to premiere on Netflix.  Not only that, but the film was premiering that night.
    It is hard to convey how insane this whole thing seemed at the time.  Never has such a big property bypassed theaters and dropped exclusively on Netflix especially without any indication it was coming.  It turned out to be a win for both Paramount and Netflix because the film had one of the biggest premieres on Netflix and was talked about for weeks after.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t positive talk.  “The Cloverfield Paradox” ended up receiving mostly negative reviews with critics believing the film went to Netflix instead of theaters due to it’s quality.  Perhaps this was the case, but I for one enjoyed the movie.
    “The Cloverfield Paradox” is the third film in the Cloverfield franchise.  Like “10 Cloverfield Lane”, this film started life as a film separate from the “Cloverfield” universe.  It was based on a spec script entitled “The God Particle” before being rewritten.  One interesting note about this film is that it ties the previous unrelated “Cloverfield” films together.  The film’s genre is more of a science fiction film than a monster movie or thriller.

    The film focuses on the crew of the Cloverfield Space Station.  The crew activates a particle accelerator to help provide power to the Earth but something goes terribly wrong.  The accelerator sends the station into an alternate dimension.  The crew must try to find a way back to their dimension while facing the horrors the accelerator may have unleashed.
    The cast consists of Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, and Zhang Ziyi.  Mbatha-Raw gives a strong performance as a conflicted astronaut torn between figuring out her place in the world.  The supporting cast is also solid.
    Critics hated this movie and while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I never got why they hated the film so much.  While there are definitely better science fiction films, there aren’t a lot that are as ambitious anymore.  We live in an era where even a thinking man’s franchise like “Star Trek” has been turned into simplistic action fare, so it’s refreshing to see a science fiction film that has some thought put into it.  I really liked this chapter personally.

Grade: B+

“10 Cloverfield Lane” Movie Review

    Once upon a time, there was a movie being developed entitled “The Cellar”.  The movie started life as a popular spec script before being developed at Paramount Pictures.  Somewhere along in the production of the film, the decision was made to link the film to their popular “Cloverfield” franchise since both movies shared some similarities.  Thus “10 Cloverfield Lane” was born.
    So “10 Cloverfield Lane” became somewhat of a curiosity to me.  Very few movies label themselves as “spiritual sequels”.  The film was directed by Dan Trachtenberg who opted to abandon Matt Reeves’ jarring found footage style and shot his film a more traditional way.  The film is not directly tied to “Cloverfield” so you don’t have to watch the first film to understand what is going on in this film.
    Besides the way the movie was shot, another interesting choice was to shift the focus to another genre.  While it’s predecessor was a horror movie, this film is more of a suspense thriller.  I think it served the film overall well.
    The film tells a simple story, after Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) gets into a car accident, she wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who inform her that the Earth is now uninhabitable.  Naturally, she has her doubts.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead does an incredible job dealing with her impossible situation in the film.  The two men she shares a bunker with are Emmett and Howard.  Emmett is played by John Gallagher Jr who had a nice vibe with Winstead.  Lastly, in the most impressive performance in the film, John Goodman plays the ambiguous Howard.  We as an audience don’t know if we can trust him or not and the whole movie hinges on Goodman selling this ambiguity.  John Goodman more than delivers and should have received more recognition for his work.
    The film then comes to an alarming end as we find out if Howard was telling the truth or not.  I won’t ruin the ending for anyone, but it is a divisive way to end a thriller.  I personally enjoyed it but a lot of people were left disappointed with the twist.  So while “10 Cloverfield Lane” may not be as original as “Cloverfield”, it’s also a nice change of pace as well.

Grade: B

"Cloverfield" Movie Review

    When the first trailer hit for the mysterious project that was later to be revealed as "Cloverfield", the internet went wild with speculation and theories.  Was it a secret "Godzilla" remake?  Was it a "Voltron" movie?  J.J. Abrams was producing it, so was it connected to "Lost"?  So many people were sure they knew what "Cloverfield" was going to be.  I mean, the trailer didn't even reveal a title, so it had to be connected to something, right?  Almost all of them were wrong.

    "Cloverfield" turned out to be something original and not connected to any other franchise.  It was it's own beast, so to speak.  "Cloverfield" is basically just a found footage style movie about a large monster who decides to destroy New York.  We aren't given much detail about what the monster is doing here or how it got here, but we just know it is causing havoc.  So basically, if you throw "Godzilla" and "The Blair Witch Project" together in a blender, you end up with something like "Cloverfield".

    The cast was made up of largely up and coming actors like T.J. Miller, Jessica Lucas, and Mike Vogel.  Out of the cast, Miller is the notable standout.  Of course, the real star of the movie isn't the human cast, it's Clovie!  The movie waits until the end to give us the final reveal of what the monster looks like and it appears as if it could have stepped right out of a H.P. Lovecraft book.

    This movie's biggest fault is what also makes it original ironically.  The found footage camera work is effective to almost a fault.  The shaky cam vibe makes you feel like you might just get sick watching it.  This was a common complaint among audiences of the film.  It's not easy enjoying a film that makes you want to throw up.

    The movie is original and definitely worth watching assuming you can stomach the experience.  “Cloverfield” is on par with the modern day monster movies like the Gareth Edwards directed “Godzilla” and it’s connected sister movie “Kong: Skull Island”.

Grade: B-

“Fire in the Sky” Movie Review

    I watch far too many alien and UFO documentaries in my free time.  I can’t count how many times I have looked up videos showing “real” footage of aliens and UFOs on YouTube.  There are so many famous accounts of alien contact, from the Betty and Barney Hill case to the Travis Walton case and beyond.  The movie “Fire in the Sky” explores the Travis Walton case and depicts what he claims he went through.
    Billed as “based on the true story”, the film shows the events surrounding Travis Walton’s abduction by aliens in 1975.  His co-workers who were traveling with him at the time witnessed the UFO and the abduction.  The men were then interrogated by Lt. Frank Watters who wanted to find out what “really” happened.  Regardless of what people believed, Walton did disappeared for five days in real life.
    D.B. Sweeney portrays Travis Walton in the film convincingly.  His pain, trama, and confusion are all conveyed frighteningly well to the extent that you feel like you are going through it as well.  James Garner plays Frank Watters as a true non believer who isn’t left with many options but to believe in the unbelievable.  Sci-if icon Robert Patrick also delivers a solid performance.
    The problem with films like this is that it succeeds or fails based on if you believe in the subject matter.  Without believeing in extraterrestrial life, there isn’t much to be scared about.  Even if you believe in alien life, the story also depends on if Travis Walton was telling the truth.  To this day, it is one of the most famous and credible stories of alien abduction.  There is no way to prove the event happened though.  Since it takes a more factual based approach on the events, it plays like more of a biography and less like a science fiction film.  “The X-Files” managed to balance the genres in a more entertaining fashion.
    “Fire in the Sky” is an interesting film regardless if you believe or not.  It is just not the most spellbinding film either.  If you believe in alien life, it’s definitely worth a watch.  If you don’t, it might just leave you scratching your head.

Grade: C+

"Searching" Movie Review

    “Searching” wasn’t really on my radar when I was going to see a movie recently.  I had known very little about it and had not heard much about it either.  Well, sometimes it’s rewarding to jump into a movie blindly.
    Directed by Aneesh Chaganty who up until now was best know for a YouTube video entitled “Seeds”.  “Searching”, all things considered, shouldn’t even have been a movie.  It was originally pitched as a short film.  The studios loved the concept so much that they gave Chaganty, an unproven director, a feature film budget.
    The film is told entirely either through a computer monitor or a smartphone.  While this isn’t the first movie to attempt such a concept, it is the first film to be entirely successful.  It’s easy to dismiss this filmmaking approach when looking at films like “Unfriended” but this film really uses the format to give clues and enhance the narrative.
    The film is about the relationship between David Kim (John Cho) and his daughter and how that relationship is tested when his daughter goes missing.  Was she kidnapped?  Did she run away?  How well did he know his daughter?  How well do you know your daughter?  This makes for an interesting and compelling thriller as David has to follow his instincts to try and find his missing daughter.
    The movie largely works because of the emotional performance of John Cho as David Kim.  Cho is mainly known for his comedic roles and as Hikaru Sulu in the new Star Trek films.  He proves he has what it takes to carry a dramatic film with this movie.  Debra Messing is also surprisingly good as the detective helping David.  I didn’t even recognize it was her until the end credits rolled.
    The movie is a powerful and suspenseful and worth a watch if you love thrillers.  The movie is full of twists and turns that keep you on your toes.  The red herrings used in the film are also well done.  The movie proves the “Unfriended” computer format can work, and if you pay to actually get the license for the actual social media sites, it only enhances the feeling of realism.

Grade: B+