Don’t hate. I was given tickets. Then I stayed thinking it could not get any worse. It did, and my faith in the industry is waning, along with my hope for humanity.
Unscripted Wahlberg slides on a knee from a Detroit dump site onto Oxford cobblestone into an antique sub and back onto midwestern fields where he leads the rebel band of transforming good guys against both the anti-alien strike force and Megatron’s bad-car band stars.
Hideously disconnected, nothing shocks more than the horrid acting from legends like Anthony Hopkins and Stanley Tucci. If money led them to this decision, the world has sunk to a new low. More character intros than a History Channel film, and more stolen moments than Shayamalan could boast, Bay thrusts Tony Hale’s sad screams into too many unrelated scenes so his two new Megan Fox wish list girls can attempt to save the world with Merlyn’s lost staff, a shapeshifting suction token, and a mini wannabe bb8 bot.
Michael Bay, still so obviously suffering from arrested development or boredom allows his pre-pubescent humor to direct scenes without sense. He calls for the low bar and gets it every time. Despite bright colors, explosive chase scenes, expensive effects, and 2012esque planet-threatening invasions, an extensively narrated opener of exposition can’t make up for a complete lack of story. This extended screen test for fresh-faced potentials hoping for their Stranger Things debut became a nonsensical comedy by minute 12, and the longest toy commercial ever by minute 5.
The quirky Quill backstory, as re-told by Kurt Russell’s appropriately named character Ego, becomes the centralized plotline as themes such as friendship, integrity, surrogate family systems, and revenge come into play.
Despite the incalculable death toll, it feels more like video game “lives” lost and tallied than body count. A colony of golden beings only emphasized this notion and added over-the-top scenarios and comedic tone to an already laughable script.
The soundtrack feels more mellow without Hooked on a Feeling but equally iconic and era-driven.
The band together, add Stallone and baby Groot, can really take on the task of guarding this golden, disparate, conflict-laden galaxy with a little help from their friends. Thanks to the 80’s, they’ll never run out of tunes, and the Marvel universe can live on making sequels forever.
They are simply two awake too early on a human transport spaceship headed to a new world to make a new life.
Jennifer Lawrence looks beautiful, rarely a flyaway hair out of place, and is barely allowed to ugly-cry. Pratt reenacts a few Martian-esque sequences, bearded and naked on-board the Homestead II.
Passengers is exactly what you expect it to be: big effects with big name stars on the big screen. Maybe it’s kind of nice to leave the theater feeling nothing. After La La Land, you may need the emotional respite.
She befriends the newest droid addition: a tall, almost Real Steel-esque bot who drops one-liners like parade candy. Erso’s small Rebel battalion also includes a repetitive blind ninja and his gruff and grubby sidekick protector, as well as an angsty Rebellion fighter called Cassian.
Meanwhile, the weak script sadly weighs the action down. Formula without mystery is story structure without voice. Characters announce each move, “I am going to go over there and then light it up.” Even heroic speeches felt like glib driving directions. “I will find out how to find them.” Audiences should get to play detective by engaging curiosity and problem solving before the film leads them to the destination. Even the final line was too much given in an already simple, dark, and scattered story.
Delightfully surprised by this one. It had the best effects to date, and I was equally won by humor and lighthearted giddy snark as Benedict Cumberbatch embraces his Marvel side. The pace of the film somehow works despite the constant embedding of exposition in tectonic spinning and explosive flair. It’s rather beautiful.
Some may complain about the heavy-handed mysticism present, but Strange himself keeps the Film leveled as a man of sarcasm and science.
Log line it: when a self-centered brain surgeon tests fate one dark and stormy night he is left incapacitated without the use of his hands, so his medical quest leads him on a spiritual journey – one which forms his heroic destiny.
Dr. Strange will return and with him a host of Marvel merch and intertwined storylines. Those infinity stones have birthed quite a following from Hydra to heart-valves to Galaxy Guards with great musical taste. Now they have a mystic who can control time, and somehow it works.
Some of the appeal in making art must be the gamble as all shows run the risk of falling flat. This Super 8 style kids V monsters series made the smart and unique decision to slowly but steadily build the show on the backs of an oddly memorable ensemble cast. They are relatable, flawed, likable humans with skills and potential for future-changing.
In their retro, rugged, primary colored world, four middle school aged boys play Dungeons and Dragons while their older siblings flirt and spy and kiss and lie – the usual plot fodder until a faceless predator kidnaps one of the small boys the same day that a little girl with strange powers arrives in town. The attacks continue and only one down-and-drunk sheriff is willing to help Winona Rider and pursue the truth at any cost.
This series of frightening events is a short 8 episode commitment, each one ending on a cliffhanger cleverly breadcrumbing the audience with clues that lead to answers.
It also felt like a jumble of too many recently viewed plot points: the hive mind movement was very Ender’s Game, the “Sabotage” replay felt like a forced nod to JJ, and the new character Jayla, (actually oddly named for Lennifer Lawrence), shows little if any connection to her namesake or imagination as she is a cut and paste of Ray from Star Wars (2015) as she shares all of the same skills, attitudes, and basic backstory?
As a magnet for mutant power, he gains control of all. Believing he is a god, his thirst for ultimate dominance forces an 80’s Care Bear stare-down in yet another civil-war type super-battle. 
McAvoy charms. Fassbender feels. Jennifer Lawrence glows.
Top game for many seasoned pros now surrounded by debut newbies who work equally as hard to show off their powers and prove their places in the legendary Marvel universe.
The 80’s can actually be a tough period to pull off in a film. It’s easy to slip too far down the rabbit hole of crimped bangs, fingerless gloves, fishnets and hightops. Add leather strappy boots and reference Coca-cola, and I guess you’re half-way there. The filmmakers also often made it feel like an 80’s sitcom’s Christmas episode rife with flashbacks of famous favorite family moments.
Sadly this X installment is more promise than payoff, more flashback than Flashdance. A few glaring missteps:
The tagline is “Only the strong will survive.” Perhaps they meant the fans.
Liam Neeson narrates the bookended tales capping either side of this second Snow White.
Blunt as Ice Queen builds an army of kidnapped child soldiers in order to rid the world of love. Sadly for her, even the most highly trained automatons cannot erase emotional pangs, especially when Chris Hemsworth enters the room. If he liked a duck, it would probably develop a serious crush. So, Thor’s blonde tendrils woo even the stoic fighter Jessica Chastain as he waltzes through with his band of merry men hoping to save the world for love.
The special effects scenes worked, perhaps because they included A-list actors in leather fighting each other: battle blades and arrows versus witching forces wielding weapons of ice, blood, fire and gold dust. This film felt a lot like the show Once Upon a Time in a tuneless Frozen recap minus the charming snowman and sisterly affection.
Splatter: on FILM 