Tag: Andy Serkis

BLACK PANTHER (2018) movie review

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Forget your fear that Marvel will take over movies as we know them. Never mind those haunting urges that attending might mean you’re supporting the “man” of the movie industry. That cash cow should not keep you from enjoying a night at the movies.Give Marvel’s new James Bond that sweet Panther suit, a sassy brainy sister with access to more tech-power than Iron Man can boast, an army of spear-wielding women, and a backstory littered with the weight of royalty, alien metal, and starlit Lion King nods, and you’ve got the action-packed two plus hours of Black Panther.The perfect cast pounces into action while Andy Serkis gives chase. You may have to overlook the piece-meal religious appropriations and some overly charged CGI, but this movie is everything you’ve come to expect: lively and exhilarating action in a stand-alone story that introduces a slew of new likable characters who jump battle-ready from scene to scene.The tribal traditions offer depth of culture to the every-hero-an-Island usual Marvel landscape. Here heroes are born, made, and continue to fight for place earning the respect of a nation with a secret that could change the world if shared.

WAR for THE PLANET of THE APES (2017) movie review

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Mercy, empathy, loyalty, grief. These themes transcend their opposites: hatred, misunderstanding, cruelty, apathy. In this film, two opposing sides fight for the same plot of land. Yes, it’s an Avatar and a Dances with Wolves all over again. But just as history is destined for repetition without intervention, so this film shows one side succumbing to evil claiming survival of the fittest while the other, the city of apes, merely wants to survive.Andy Serkis is Caesar, beloved and respected leader whose rescue mission skews when personal loss leads to vengeance. Steve Zahn’s character adds such necessary relief to the tension.Blood is spilled on both sides, but the new human enemy, played expertly by Woody Harrelson seems to feel nothing in the face of loss. He kills at will, wounds for sport, captures communities and watches them starve.

This is a war movie, as advertised, but it is shot-for-shot so beautiful, such a big screen wonder, that you may almost forget that the main characters are apes rather than men.Caesar’s literal journey takes sharp turns as he confronts his demons of bloodlust and unworthiness, meeting friends and foes on his own path to redemption. Don’t miss this enthralling finale’ to the trilogy.