Tag Archives: Movie Review

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Dune: Part Two Movie Review

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Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.

Why did I come to this movie again?

Because it’s Dune: Part Two!

5 of 5

Characters

This story is full of great characters with rich backgrounds and varied ideals. The film did a good job of showing us this.

Chani was probably my favorite.

There were a few who felt flat. I’m not sure if that was the actor or the director.

4 of 5

Did I care what happened?

Since I haven’t read the book for at least twenty-five years, I was interested in what happened. Mostly because I didn’t really remember.

The film kept the tension going, which kept me interested.

4 of 5

Plot Holes

There will always be plot holes in adaptations from books to film, and I’m generally forgiving with those.

What I didn’t love in this movie was little things like not showing us, the audience, how to ride a worm via a training run for Paul. They skipped a bunch of little things, due to time I’m sure, that made parts of the story feel shallow.

4 of 5

How many times did I yawn?

Surprisingly, none. Part two is faster paced than one, so that was good. I don’t think the hubby fell asleep at all, which is miraculous.

5 of 5

Cool Factor

I can’t fault the beauty of each scene in this movie. The attention to detail is mind-boggling, and I loved seeing it in the theater.

The battles were awesome, which is important to an action junkie like me. If you’re looking for a spectacle that’s also pretty, this is your film!

5 of 5

The End

It’s abrupt. There’s no denying that. However, I did love that Chani marches off because Paul is not only betraying here, but he’s also being an idiot. All he’s doing is replacing one overlord with another, and that’s not what they need.

4 of 5

Overall Enjoyment

Like the first film, I loved each individual scene, but the movie felt like a pile of squares for a beautiful quilt that were hastily strung together. Did I like it? Yes. Would I watch it again? Yes. Can I say I loved it? Not quite.

4 of 5

Total: 35

That’s a Brown Belt!

White Belt: 1-10
Yellow Belt: 11-19
Purple Belt: 20-25
Green Belt: 26-30
Brown Belt: 31-35
Black Belt: 36-40


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Argylle Movie Review

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A reclusive author who writes espionage novels about a secret agent and a global spy syndicate realizes the plot of the new book she’s writing starts to mirror real-world events, in real time.

Why did I come to this movie again?

Some friends wanted to see it, and I was like…fine. (I’d heard it was pretty bad, but sometimes going in with low expectations is best.)

4 of 5

Characters

I loved Bryce Dallas Howard in this! She did a great job playing a seemingly mild-mannered spy novel writer who was way out of her depth. The character was cute and fun, and then something more. I also love that she told the director that she wasn’t going to lose a bunch of weight to fit an ideal actress size for this film, and the director said that was fine, he wanted her as an actress, not for what she looked like.

Henry Cavil was there for eye-candy effect, which worked.

Sam Rockwell did a pretty good job too.

The bad guys were simply bad, which isn’t enough these days. Audiences want more.

I honestly didn’t mind the characters. This movie was set up as ridiculous from the first few minutes, and it only went downhill from there. I wasn’t expecting much in the realm of character development, and I didn’t get it.

Is that a win-win? I’m not sure.

3 of 5

Did I care what happened?

I didn’t fall asleep, but the two people I was with did. The pacing felt jerky, but it kept me entertained.

4 of 5

Plot Holes

If this was a superhero film, I’d say, “of course there are plot holes.” Since this was sort of like a superhero film, I’ll say, “there weren’t just plot holes, but more like plot chasms.”

So many things didn’t make sense, and there was literally a plot twist every ten minutes. Maybe more. I stopped trying to keep track and simply ride the chaos.

3 of 5

How many times did I yawn?

Like I said, the pacing felt jerky. I don’t love it when the director uses the main character falling asleep or unconscious and waking up somewhere new as a scene change, and this film did it four or five times.

There was plenty of action, and more than enough twists, so I didn’t yawn at all. I did roll my eyes a lot.

4 of 5

Cool Factor

I’d love to say this film looked great, but frankly the CGI was awful. Between the unrealistic cat, the obviously green-screen backgrounds, the cartoon oil spill, and the horrible body double CGI in the action scenes I felt like I was watching something from at least 15 years ago.

Now, if you’re in it for pure cheesiness, then this is your movie. The action was over the top and the characters cliché.

3 of 5

The End

Um…the ending was okay. I guess. I left this movie almost as confused as when I started, which isn’t good. The threads sort of wrapped up, but not really.

4 of 5

Overall Enjoyment

I’m glad I went and saw this on $5 Tuesday at the theater. Was it fun to watch? Yes. Did I laugh a few times at the silliness of it all? Yes. Would I see it again? Probably not.

3 of 5

Total: 28

That’s a Green Belt!

White Belt: 1-10
Yellow Belt: 11-19
Purple Belt: 20-25
Green Belt: 26-30
Brown Belt: 31-35
Black Belt: 36-40


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Blue Beetle Movie Review

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An alien scarab chooses Jaime Reyes to be its symbiotic host, bestowing the recent college graduate with a suit of armor that’s capable of extraordinary powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the superhero known as Blue Beetle.

Why did I come to this movie again?

I was on a plane, saw it on the list, and decided I wanted some mindless entertainment for a couple of hours. Honestly, I’ve felt pretty meh about this movie since it came out, which is why I hadn’t seen it yet.

4 of 5

Characters

I really liked Xolo Maridueña (the guy who played Jamie) in Cobra Kai, and I think he did a decent job here. Jamie’s character was…fine. Nothing super new or exciting as far as a superhero origin story goes.

Through the first part of the movie his family was annoying to the point of me almost switching to another show. I get that he had to bond with the beetle, but having his family treat something that could be priceless like a $5 ball from WalMart made me cranky. They mostly redeemed themselves by the end. I did like his dad, and who doesn’t love a warrior grandma?

The bad guy didn’t do much for me. She’s evil, wants money, and will do anything to get it. They tried to give her a backstory, but it fell flat for me.

The love interest was just kind of there for convenience of the plot.

The Beetle should have had a lot more screen time.

3 of 5

Did I care what happened?

I only sort of cared what happened. Without a strong draw to the characters I wasn’t terribly invested in what was going on.

3 of 5

Plot Holes

This is a superhero film, of course there are plot holes. In this case I felt like they underexplained anything that had to do with the actual plot.

For instance, the girl’s dad was a pseudo superhero? Tell me more about that. Give me more than a two-sentence explanation that leaves me with more questions than answers. And can anyone who has a license fly the Blue Beetle mobile?

Why did the beetle choose Jamie? They skirted the issue and we learned nothing more about it.

What exactly is the hierarchy at the big evil corporation?

Why couldn’t Jamie find a job after coming home from college? Pretty sure people in big cities hire college graduates no matter what neighborhood they’re from.

3 of 5

How many times did I yawn?

The pacing of this film was okay. Instead of yawning, let’s talk about how many times I rolled my eyes.

Many.

I liked that they used a minority family who were down on their luck, but just how many times can they remind us that anyone with money or power is evil? Approximately 85 in two hours. Show us once. If the writers do that correctly, you don’t need to tell the audience about it again. And again. And again.

4 of 5

Cool Factor

This film looked good. Granted, I was watching a small screen in the back of an airline seat, but I didn’t get thrown out of the story by any of the effects, and while they didn’t explain much about the Beetle, I did think it was cool.

4 of 5

The End

While the finale was super fun, it bordered on ridiculous. His family, who were barely competent at the beginning of the show, break him out of a high security facility? Like I said, it was fun. I laughed more than once, but I was also rolling my eyes a bit.

4 of 5

Overall Enjoyment

I’d give this one a meh. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. I did have low expectations, so that probably helped.

I think this movie tried to straddle the line between campy and serious, and didn’t quite get the balance right.

3 of 5

Total: 28

That’s a Green Belt!

White Belt: 1-10
Yellow Belt: 11-19
Purple Belt: 20-25
Green Belt: 26-30
Brown Belt: 31-35
Black Belt: 36-40


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Godzilla Minus One Movie Review

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Post war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb.

Why did I come to this movie again?

I’m not a huge Godzilla fan, although I’m not opposed to the franchise, but when I saw a preview for this film I was intrigued, and after I read a few reviews, I decided to see it.

5 of 5

Characters

As a writer, I know that you need to be mean to your characters. The meaner the better, as long as it stays within the reality of the story and doesn’t lean into the ridiculous. This film did exactly that.

The main character, a failed kamikaze pilot, seemingly cheats death time and time again while others around him fall. The poor guy is haunted by survivor’s guilt on many levels, and the film portrays this brilliantly. More than once he says his war isn’t over yet, and I loved that.

The supporting cast—a homeless woman who is caring for a baby that isn’t hers, a neighbor that hates the main character for not dying as a kamikaze pilot, a technician who blames the main character for the deaths of his friends because he froze when Godzilla was staring him down (which I thought was 100% realistic), and the unlikely band of friends he accumulates as he clears mines from the sea—all turned into fleshed out men and women that I cared about.

Godzilla was his (its?) awesome self. The filmmaker kept with a very classic style of the monster—it seriously looked like a guy in a huge lizard suit with a tiny head on a giant body—but it looked cool and totally worked.

5 of 5

Did I care what happened?

Yes.

Godzilla appears at the very beginning and destroys a small Japanese outpost on an island. The main character survives, and goes back to Tokyo. There we see what’s left of the city, which isn’t much, and its people. The post-war view into the people and the city was so immersive that I actually forgot we were watching a Godzilla movie for about 20 minutes, and I didn’t mind.

Then, when the monster reappeared, I had enough people to care about that I was glued to my seat with my eyes wide open.

5 of 5

Plot Holes

Okay, this is a monster movie, of course there are plot holes.

A handful of them got through my enjoyment of watching the film, but they were petty things, like why did two ships have to side-swipe one another to cross the lines they were towing? Couldn’t they have done that without taking off the side mirrors, so to speak? (Pretty sure they could have.)

The passage of time felt off more than once, which was also distracting.

It was mostly little things like that that drew me out of the story.

4 of 5

How many times did I yawn?

None. I forgot we were reading the captions after about two minutes, and I never once got bored. The tension built nicely throughout the movie.

5 of 5

Cool Factor

More recent versions of Godzilla are filled with action shlock. While this one had plenty of action regarding the monster, none of the characters tried being Jason Stathem in the Transporter movies. Instead, they all did things that were within their wheelhouse. Even our main character, who is flying a plane at the end, doesn’t go all Top Gun. I loved that the director kept all of the action sequences in the restraints of post WWII.

Godzilla’s laser/atomic breath was AMAZING! The only thing that looked CGI was Godzilla, but I didn’t mind it.

My only complaint was a brief scene of horrible flashing that I had to close my eyes for.

4 of 5

The End

So satisfying for me. The character arcs wrapped up nicely, the monster is gone…for now, and all the people can finally move past the war and the scars it left behind.

5 of 5

Overall Enjoyment

The hubby and I talked about this movie all night after we got home and how much we liked it.

Never once did the director shove an anti-war sentiment down our throats. Instead, they carefully showed us what Japan was like after WWII. How the people suffered, how many were alone, and how they had to ban together instead of fracturing apart.

I think having Godzilla to fight after they’d lost the war was a solid idea. Providing something for the people to unite for kept this film feeling real to me.

I sometimes struggle with Asian films because the actors get overly dramatic with lots of screaming and begging and spittle flying moments. (This is me not liking the style, not a critique on the technique.) While there was a bit of that in this film, I thought they utilized it well, and it didn’t pull me out of the story like it sometimes can.

Seeing this in the theater was really fun. If you have the time to check it out, I highly recommend it.

5 of 5

Total: 38

That’s a Black Belt!

White Belt: 1-10
Yellow Belt: 11-19
Purple Belt: 20-25
Green Belt: 26-30
Brown Belt: 31-35
Black Belt: 36-40


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