Born Again

Plot: Washed-up music producer and record label owner Dan (Mark Ruffalo) meets heart-broken, depressed songwriter Gretta (Keira Knightley), and they make an album outside in different NYC neighborhoods. We meet Dan's teenage daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld) and his estranged wife Miriam (Catherine Keener) along the way. Keira channels her troubles into her music, and when the project is done, everything seems better. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Kira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo are great, and the movie is fun to watch. Who knew that Kira Knightley could sing? 

Born Again is a light drama about people in New York City making an album. It is not a musical, but there is a magical reality element where things kind of work out -- we get some satire about the music industry though. The music making is overlaid on a soap opera plot involving Gretta's break up with her boyfriend (James Corden) and Dan's relationship with his wife Miriam and daughter Violet.

There are a lot of singing scenes, but the music isn't boring -- the visuals are interesting, and the music is well integrated into the story. I liked the Kira Knightley songs better than the others.  I might just buy "Everythings Coming Up Roses,"

Some of the visuals of New York are pretty cool. 

Cast: Kira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, James Corden, Katherine Keener, Hailee Steinfeld

Directed by: John Carne

Rating: 3.0 stars: Well acted and fun to watch

More: .The songs are written by a whole committee: Gregg Alexander co-wrote songs for the film with Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley, Rick Nowels and Nick Southwood. John Carney and Glen Hansard also contributed as songwriters for the film's music. The featured song Lost Stars was written by Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley and Nick Southwood.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Plot: In the first movie, a virus that makes apes intelligent escapes the lab and kills off most people as a side effect. In this movie, the smart apes get in a war with the remnant human population. The peace-oriented ape leader is Caesar from the first movie and his chimp rival is Koba who wants to kill people. The peace-oriented human is Malcolm (Jason Clarke) and the war-oriented human is Drefus (Gary Oldman). Malcolm has a kid (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and a girlfriend (Keri Russell), just like Caesar has kid and girlfriend.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: This feels like the long set up to a much better sequel. We have nice apes and nice people being drawn against their will to a war no one wants. Obviously this is an allegory many wars notably WWI.

This movie is OK, but not actually fun because I knew how it was going to end.[SPOILER that anyone who saw the rest of the series would know already.]  That is because we know that eventually earth becomes the Planet of the Apes. If you want to root for the humans, well -- maybe 2-3 sequels from now you'll get your chance. 

The CGI characters are the best ever. Hundreds of CGI apes each look lifelike and better than lifelike. (Real monkeys are kind-of gross.) Wonderful animation.

Caesar's eyes at the end, on a large format screen

The battle scene of the Kobe riding a horse through the flames is wonderful! There are several top visuals.  I loved the cross-species baby-hugging scene too. Caesar's eyes in the last scene are gripping.

The music is orchestral music -- a little on the slow side except the fight scenes. 

Cast:  Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Keri Russell

Directed by: Matt Reeves

Rating:  2.0 stars - It just isn't that much fun!  Despite great CGI

More: Not as good as the previous one; see my review of that.

Even More: We saw this on a "premium large format" screen with Dolby Atmos & 39 independent speakers.   This is my first encounter with "premium large format", which covers a variety of projection technologies that compete with Imax. This one was a 4K DLP from Texas Instruments.

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Snowpiercer

Plot: A geoengineering project to fix global warming went wrong, and the earth has gone frozen. Everything and everyone is dead, except Willis (Ed Harris) and his supertrain that is circling around frozen, snowy Eurasia. On the train, there is a strict class hierarchy, with the poor people in back living in squalor and the rich people in the front of the train. Curtis (Chris Evans) is a poor person and he starts a revolution. He gathers some big guys, and they begin a battle to the front one car at a time.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review:  The best part is the allegory because the train is the earth, and the class structure of the train is just like the earth. Most of the movie is dreary and bloody, later in the movie we see the wonderful quarters at the front of the train and we get a full dose of irony and allegory

Aside from Curtis the characters are thinly written, and that is what make Snowpiecer only OK. 

Visually there are some great scenes, for example the roomful of thugs with axes that the rich people send to put down revolution, and another is the mobile aquarium. A highlight is the disco, where young partygoers dance, drink and get high oblivious to the suffering poor, the revolution or the dead, frozen earth passing by outside. 

Despite the thin character development, I recommend it. 

Cast: Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Kang-ho Song

Directed by:  Joon-ho Bong

Rating: 3.0 stars:.

More: No one ever explains why they can't stop the train.

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Jersey Boys

Plot: This is a bio-pic about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the 1960's pop band. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Jersey Boys really makes me appreciate how bad music was before the Beatles. 

I know someone likes this music, but it isn't me, and I couldn't wait for the movie to end. The film is punctuated by songs, and the scripted action isn't enough alone. The film is slow and the characters are stereotypes. 

Finally real stories  are usually boring. The real world ending is especial boring. It would have ended better with a plane crash or a suicide. Maybe earlier too. 

John Lloyd does have a nice voice though. He has a few albums, and they are this same archaic style of music. 

Cast: John Lloyd Young, Vincent Piazza

Directed by: Clint Eastwood: he must like this style of music after all he is 84. Jersey Boys was based on the stage play

Rating: 1.5 star

More: The real ending is a dull let down, but the post ending is a Bollywood style dancing blowout. Clearly the best part. 

Even More Here is the real band.

22 Jump Street

Plot:  Undercover cops Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) search for a drug dealer at a local collage. Jenko joins a frat and the football team, but Schmidt doesn't fit in at the frat, and meets pretty girl Maya (Amber Stevens) at a poetry slam. That is the set up, and lots of sitcom humor unwinds from that. Spelling out any more is just repeating the jokes.  In the end, they are in Mexico for Spring Break and catch the bad guy. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: A clever and funny movie that was more intelligent than the original or most frat house movies.

In my review of 21 Jump Street I commented on the poor taste in gay-bashing jokes, and this movie clearly shaped up.  Having said that, 22 Jump Street pushes the Bromace trope past irony into delicious absurdity with a relationship counselor, a breakup and naturally a happy reunion.

Jonah Hill carries the movie with his facial expressions. Channing Tatum is the likable set-up with some good gags of his own. Ice Cube plays an great angry boss.  

Cast: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Wyatt Russell, Amber Stevens

Directed by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Rating: 3.0 stars: Why 3? Because my DW told me that I'd give it 2.5, and I can't have her be right.

More: I loved the spoof spin-offs shown during the credits. 

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How to Train your Dragon 2

Plot: Hiccup (really his name is Hiccup) tries to maintain the peace as a rival dragon master tries to capture all the dragons. On the way he meets a surprise character, who gives him advice. In the end there is a big battle with flying dragons. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: You really can't trust the critics for kid's movies. This had stellar reviews, and it was unremarkable and not fun.  

The basic dramatic action was never that strong. They tried to set up parent-child tension, but that never worked -- partially because Hiccup is just to cynical to show real emotion. Similarly the interaction between the Hiccup and his friends just isn't strong enough to be entertaining. When the surprise character is introduced -- it is interested for a while, but the movie slows way down while it processes the plot change: sleep inducing. The final battle was not dramatic enough for various reasons. 

The flirting between Hiccup and Astrid was fun though. The stud-infatuated Ruffnut was a running gag that worked too.

The dragons were comic and not cool. The animated people was great however - especially the hair. Computer animation of hair has really advanced. The sound track was also good. 

They deliberately gave Hiccup and his friends modern sounding dialog whereas most everyone else had a stilted, pan-britania accent. This heightened the sense of irony and decreased the dramatic tension.

Written and directed by: Dean DeBlois, based on the books by Cressida Cowell

Rating: 1.5 stars: Maybe it deserved two stars for the message about peaceful reconciliation, but it was no fun. I felt cheated: like I wanted to see another movie to compensate me for the dull and sleepy time I had lost.

More: I rated the first movie 2 stars. Nonetheless, I remember it as having had fun parts and a happy ending. My memories of this are not so good. 

The first movie had a problem with joke-y dialog about family members getting eaten by dragons, and way too high a body count for such a light tone. This movie had a lower body count, but was no fun.

Even More: I still love Stoick's beard. 

Edge of Tomorrow 3D

Plot: Aliens have invaded, and Major Cage (Tom Cruise) gets sent to the front line because he pissed off the General. He accidentally captures an alien technology to control time so that every time he dies, he gets sent back to the beginning of that day. He plots with war hero Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) to learn from his experiences in combat, and gradually turn the tables on the aliens. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Edge of Time has a clever plot and Tom Cruise's performance is strong as he re-lives many similar combat scenes, but knowing more each time: a lot of good facial & voice acting. Cruise undergoes a personality change from privileged softy to tough-guy somewhere in the middle. Cruise is fun to watch as a cocky, tough guy in the comic relief segments. 

Emily Blunt plays a very tough warrior woman. She is more someone to respect and admire rather than a believable character -- obviously the coolest character in the movie. In keeping with a long tradition of female sci-fi heroes, Rita is like a male character in a female body; not like recent women heroes from young adult fiction like Hunger Games, Divergent or even X-Men. Rita doesn't talk about her past just like male tough guys; in contrast Marvel Comics heroes never stop talking about their pasts.

The chemistry between Cruise and Blunt is the strongest part of the movie. The second best is the puzzle solving as they work their way to alien's vulnerability.  

The big downer was the dreariness and hopelessness of the battle scenes though the vast middle of the movie. Perhaps it needed to be dreary to have something to contrast the end with, but I never thought the movie was fun to watch. It seemed like every one, but Rita hated Cage, and the rest of the time Cage was getting battered by practice robots or getting killed by real aliens. The comic relief parts were not enough to lighten the mood. 

The drum-heavy sound track Christophe Becke was good. The special effects were solid. I did not like aliens who just seems to roar. They moved fast, but were otherwise not very interesting. The scenery was always dreary, battle field images. There were no cool visuals.

Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt

Directed by: Doug Liman

Based on the novel in Japanese by: Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Rating: 2.5 stars: Recommended, but it felt a little hollow to me. My wife liked it a lot more.

More: It is interesting to think about whether women could be heroic warriors if they had those robotically-assisted suits in real life. It seems Lockheed Martin has developed one. 

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