Change Your Image
blryan1973
Reviews
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024)
Dry and Boring
Right off the top this series has done itself a disservice for using the same name as a popular Brad Pitt movie. Immediately you think it's a series that has been rebooted so that it can be race swapped to satisfy the immediate attention seeking youth generation. Not to mention the lack of original content coming out of Hollywood that we have to recycle something from the past and barely put a new spin on it.
The main actors are absolutely solid so there is that. Donald Glover has shown himself to be a real solid actor going from Community to Atlanta. Maya Erskine has also has a wide range of roles but I especially enjoyed watching her in Plus One.
Unfortunately Donald and Maya cannot carry a dry and boring story line.
Oppenheimer (2023)
I guess a 6
This story, as all history, should be told so we do not repeat mistakes of the past.
Be warned this is a real movie. What I mean by that is that it is 3 hours long. That is what real movies used to be, not this hour twenty because no one had the attention span for it.
Cillian Murphy is as always brilliant in these types of roles. Emily Blunt is good but under utilized for her level of acting skills. Robert Downey Jr is perfect as a villain these days - stick with what is close to your skill tree. There are so many other great B and C actors as well.
There is some full frontal laze about nudity that was really, lets be honest, unnecessary and more of a shock factor to wake you up from being bored or confused.
The timeline jumping was confusing and felt more like editing issues than artistic story telling. Then once you think the movie is over there is another whole hour of a story you had no idea existed not to mention it was never very clear why it was there.
Crazy Fun Park (2023)
About what you would expect
I went into this not really expecting anything since the Goosebumps re-release was such a disappointment.
I went into it with even less expectation because it was Australian. But I was hopeful since it was Australian and I did not know any of the actors so you do not get bogged down with their personal opinions.
It was going well until episodes 5 or 6 where it starts to show more of the B characters personalities, stories and coupling traits. And then by episode 7 we started with the grammar lessons.
From there you are so distracted and irritated by that unwanted and un-useful injected information that you are annoyed and just quit.
Anyone But You (2023)
Typical Romantic Comedy
It is harder these days to make and find a real laugh out loud comedy film where you enjoy the plot, the location and the actors.
This would have been the one to see since the main characters played by Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell do seem to work very well together.
And as far as I'm concerned any movie with Dermot Mulroney in it is a win.
This movie is nothing new and refreshing. We've seen this particular "I hate you and we cannot be a couple but pretend to be one until we fall madly in love" movie time and time again.
The new spin on this one, which is becoming more of an annoying norm these days, is the nature of the relationship between the two people getting married. Who might I add are not even main characters. They are just some nameless background fodder.
At the beginning of all movies we get a violence, language and in some cases even a smoking warning but can we add an "uncomfortable coupling" warning too.
It's a Wonderful Knife (2023)
Like the name
This had the potential to be good, like really good but failed.
Plot rating 9 Imagine It's a Wonderful Life with a cross of Scream meets Ground Hog Day.
Actor rating 8 No huge big name to overwhelm any other actor.
Character rating 3 Before the title is even flashed you know that there is a moderate to high level of "diverse" characters. This unabashed level of character assortment was more of a distraction than adding any worthwhile content. With every scene you cringe because you know what is coming next with the "assortment" of couples or the egotistic power hungry mayor instead of what's going to happen in the storyline.
I wish movies and shows would stop sensualizing characters because it ends up being filler for a weak plot line. Cleaver Title.
History of the World: Part II (2023)
Standard Brooks
If you are familiar with Mel Brooks work you know that there will be an abundance of "stars", sketch comedy, what use to be non-pc content/ topics aaaaannnnnndddddd singing with dancing. Now seeing how a person's taste can change with time we decided to try it.
If you enjoyed Brooks back in the day you will like this " new" stuff. The writing and comedic style and comedy as well as the singing is the exact same. I may like this less than before because I am 35 years older and the world of celebrities being what it is put an extra damper on this whole thing. As I said if you like Mel before you will probably like this now.
The Watchful Eye (2023)
Compelling to slow to done
The concept did seem interesting and started out as a decent "who done it" style of mystery. From episode one to three you are introduced to the characters and probable "why". But after about episode three it just went on without giving any more useful info. The episodes just became filler with no more insights to what it was trying to build to. Since it did not build up anymore we just stopped at episode seven because they felt the need to show "relations" between C level characters that have no relevance to the story. Ultimately you do not care about any of the characters and will find yourself searching your phone while this is playing.