Movie Reviews

It's the sequel science fiction fans have been waiting decades for. And that's not an overstatement. When the original Blade Runner hit screens in 1982, it's dark, throwback to the 1940s detective noir film style was splattered against a backdrop of futuristic downtowns where the cop, Deckard (Harrison Ford), was charged with running down a group of rogue replicants led by Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah. ...

Tom Cruise is back with his famous smile in tact as he tackles the role of expert pilot Barry Seal who was at the center of the late '70s and Reagan-era '80s rise of the Medellin Cartel and Iran-Contras conspiracy. Seal (Cruise), a TWA pilot in the late '70s is approached by Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson), with the CIA and recruited to walk away from his job and serve his country flying reconnaissance missions over Central America. ...

Taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to the spy films, this sequel to the popular graphic novel turned film, “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” takes place a year after the original. With more over-the-top car chases, blended slow-motion fight sequences, entertaining villains and insane weaponry, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is a year into his role as a Kingsman and is embracing the well-dressed spy persona while remaining very much himself...

Shortly after proposing to his girlfriend while on vacation in Spain, Mitch Rapp’s (Dylan O’Brien) life is turned upside down when a group of Islamic terrorists begin spraying bullets on a popular vacation beach resort. Both Rapp and his girlfriend are hit in the slaughter, Rapp survives his wounds, his girlfriend dies in front of his eyes in the surf...

Those who have a fear of clowns consider yourselves warned, stay away. “It” will do nothing to change your perception of these otherwise lovable, horn-honking, floppy shoe wearing practical jokers. It is the the epitome of a childhood nightmare. The town of Derry has a habit of population loss — primarily involving children and teens which apparently goes unnoticed as it has for many generations. ...

Avengers, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) trade in crossbows, costumes, magic spells and super villains to search for the killer of a young Native American woman on the Wind River Indian Reservations in Wyoming in the appropriately titled, “Wind River.”...

If anyone has one of those hand held clickers that count, please bring it to "The Hitman's Bodyguard," there might be some kind of a record here. You see, I left mine at home and I shouldn't have. Anytime you have Samuel L. Jackson in an R-rated movie, you can bet there will be a surplus of F-bombs and MFers written into the script. ...

The story is as simple as the backwoods masterminds plotting the crime, but the comedy is subtle and rich in "Logan Lucky." It's a redneck “Ocean's 11.” Or as it is referred to at one point in the film, "Ocean's 7-11." A trio of West Virginia siblings: Former college football hero and recently unemployed Jimmy (Channing Tatum), Iraq war veteran and bartender Clyde (Adam Driver) and hairdresser sister Mellie (Riley Keough) — the Logans — are seen as a cursed family. ...

Kathryn Bigelow delivers again as she directs a gritty story set in the midst of the 1967 Detroit 12th Street racially-fueled riots, titled simply “Detroit.” This hard watch offers a little bit of background and perspective, setting the table for a harshly toned and darkly shot tale focusing on one specific incident which resulted in the death of three young black men, allegedly at the hands of aggressive, white Detroit patrol officers, at the Algiers Motel...

Both J.J. Abrams' and Ron Howard’s names were linked to this project which has been in the works for approximately 10 years. Howard stuck around as one of the producers, but the result of writer and director Nikolaj Arcel’s adaptation of the popular Stephen King series, “The Dark Tower,” onto the big screen, makes me wish perhaps Abrams or Howard had remained on board to oversee the endeavor...

The final tale in a trio of films providing the backstory to an Earth run amok delivers on several levels, telling a very human story about a group of chimps, gorillas and orangutans trying to live in peace in the California northland woods with a rebel military group determined to ensure the end to the intelligent tribe under the leadership of Caesar (Andy Serkis), whose origins stem from a chemical-induced experiment designed to cure alzheimer's two films ago...

To be fair, I never had a big problem with Tobey Maguire in the Spider-Man suit, although I hated the whole “emo, dancing down the street thing” we got in “Spider-Man 3.” And it was a bit of hard sell with Maguire as a high school kid in the original film. ...

A talented ensemble cast, featuring one of my personal favorite actors, Kevin Spacey, a spectacular genre-mixed soundtrack and amazing stunt driving help make “Baby Driver” one of the most fun, entertaining and interestingly designed non-box office blockbuster films of the summer...

I was really looking forward to some solid belly laughs with Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler paired as husband and wife in “The House.” Instead, the best I got was a couple of small chuckles throughout and disappointment over the waste of their comedic talents...

At the end of “Transformers: The Last Knight,” there is a hint suggesting another film might be on the horizon. I sure hope not. This is one sci-fi series which — despite its amazing special effects — has run its course. I really, really wanted to like this movie. I enjoy Mark Wahlberg in both action and comedy roles. Likewise I’m a huge Anthony Hopkins fan. So when I heard Hopkins had joined the cast, I had high hopes. Thanks guys for dashing my hopes...

Four college dorm floor buddies Jess (Scarlett Johansson), Alice (Jillian Bell), Blair (Zoe Kravitz) and Frankie (Ilana Glazer) vow to grow old together and raise their kids to play together after a night of partying. Fast forward 10 years — Jess is now running for Senate and getting ready to marry her nerdy fiance Peter (Paul W. Downs) and obnoxious, sex-starved Alice arranges a bachelorette weekend in Miami for the girls to reunite and get their party on...

“47 Meters Down” got part of the formula down. The suspense was high. I mean decent edge of your seat moments without a doubt. Two sisters trapped on the bottom of the ocean in murky water, surrounded by 20- and 25-foot great white sharks and quickly running out of air in their oxygen tanks — it had all the elements of great scary movie...

At least Tom Cruise has the Mission Impossible series to fall back on, Fraser had nothing to go to except "George of the Jungle." Actually, Fraser might have been a better choice for the new mummy, his career has been wrapped up for quite some time and makeup time would have been limited. Pun intended. Apologies to Fraser. Compared to this, his first mummy movie was art...

While there was a great deal of critical and fan blowback over DC’s initial attempts to introduce filmgoers to the Justice League with “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” — the stand-alone tale introducing us to Wonder Woman’s (Gal Gadot) origin should sooth the savage fanboy...

A young man obsessed with finding the legendary pirate Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) finds himself joined in the search by a crew of the undead led by Spanish Captain Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), Sparrow’s old nemesis Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and the British Navy in the fifth installment of Disney’s ride-based “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, “Dead Men Tell No Tales.”...

Muscles, bikinis and lifeguards playing cops While the old “Baywatch” TV series took it self pretty seriously as a group of southern California lifeguards found themselves ridiculously involved in far more than simply patrolling the beach for trouble — “Baywatch” the movie has far more fun with the premise, constantly reminding the team of lifeguards that they are only there to keep “swim happy white people from drowning” and are not cops...

The pesky little (and big) aliens are back in the sequel to the prequel in the “Alien” series, “Alien: Covenant.” The sixth film in the series tracks the crew and passengers of the Covenant, a ship with 2,000 passengers and 1,000 more embryos destined for a distant planet, Origae-6, with hopes of colonization in 2014. ...

Guy Ritchie penned and directed his vision of the King Arthur tale, focusing on his rise to the crown and challenging relationship with the mystically powered sword Excalibur in “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.” Ritchie tabbed Charlie Hunnam (most known for his role as anti-hero and lead character on Fox’s now expired Sons of Anarchy production) to play the young adult Arthur who turns from brothel hustler to the ruler of a kingdom...

Marvel's wildest collection of heroes on any one team — the Guardians of the Galaxy — are back for their second adventure to, well ... guard the galaxy one more time from a new baddie while doing "something good, something bad or something in between."...

Tom Hanks is at it again. With his friendly smile and comforting manner, you can only wonder what this corporate executive’s ultimate endgame is as he attempts to create a utopian corporate environment and convenient technology system that will help humanity be its best self. And while that certainly sounds good, there’s always a downside, starting with what you surrender in personal freedoms and privacy...

An apothecary in a small Armenian village, Mikael (Oscar Issac), dreams of earning his medical credentials and returning to his village to serve the region in the Ottoman Empire. He agrees to marry a young woman in the village in order to gain the dowry which will pay for him to attend the Imperial Medical Academy in Constantinople...

Chicago Tribune investigative reporter Lee Stroebel (Mike Vogel) and his wife, Leslie (Erika Christensen) have a nice life. The teen sweethearts lives in a comfortable Chicago suburb with their daughter in the late '70s, and Lee has just received the prestigious Len H. ...

Is there a more fitting name than Vin Diesel to headline a series of movies all about fast moving vehicles? Diesel, as the main character Dominic Toretto, and his team light are back for the eighth go-round of the “Fast” franchise with “Fate of the Furious.” After each one of these movies I continually wonder how they’re going to top the ridiculous chase sequences in the next film. ...

It’s been a while since we’ve had a comedy come along featuring popular actors that doesn’t see genuine laughs replaced with over-the-top crude humor attempts. And while “Going in Style” does offer us a couple of blasts of sexuality between its 70-plus-year-old characters, the movie itself isn’t focused on that theme...

Leave it to Dax Shepard to take an '80s TV staple and pervert it with his sexually explicit script and direction — pushing the dialogue to the limit and even sharing a glimpse of his junk with the audience in this big screen re-envisioning of the “CHiPS” franchise...

“Life,” not to be confused with the family board game of the same name, uses the tried and true formula which launched the successful, and seemingly never-ending “Alien” films, taking a group of space travelers and scientists, placing a hostile creature on board the ship with no way to escape and no help in sight...

"Tale as old as time ...," well you know the rest. We've read the children's tale, watched it on TV, seen the animated film and now we have a live-action film done brilliantly, bringing "Beauty and the Beast" to life on the big screen for young and young at heart to enjoy together...

Usually when Samuel L. Jackson is on the screen, he’s the baddest dude around. That is of course unless he’s sharing the screen with an 80-foot ape. Such is the case in “Kong: Skull Island,” the latest telling of the King Kong story. There are no New York City skyscrapers to be found, nor is their some strange kind of monkey love interest. ...

Hugh Jackman made it known that unless something spectacular comes along (perhaps a buddy film with Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool? Pretty please) “Logan” would be the last time he would sport the Wolverine hairdo. So they decided to do it up right. Instead of what had been the staple X-Men films PG-13, this Marvel comic character turned big screen film, was tagged with a more mature R rating for its multiple F-bombs and stepped-up violence...

It’s the last day of the school year at Roosevelt High School and chaos reigns supreme as seniors are taking their “pranks” to a new level with a horse running wild through the hallways on meth, trip-wire paint bombs in the hallways, permanent ink drawings and remarks on the classroom boards and painted administrator calls in the highway...

Walking out of "A Cure for Wellness" I found myself thinking, "Wow, how do you review that?" For certain I can say I haven't seen anything like it in a very long time. The story offers a familiar psychological thriller centered around a man being held for treatment for an "illness" despite his belief that he's fine. ...

If there was a lesson to be taken away from the original "John Wick" — played with zero personality by Keanu Reeves — it's don't mess with his stuff, particularly his dog or his car. And the movie picks up not long after the conclusion of the first film. Having avenged the murderer of his dog, the former contract hitman, Wick sets out to locate his Ford Mustang from a Russian gangster uncle of the first film's bad guy...

Admittedly, I was expecting next to nothing when I went to review "The Lego Movie." I don't quite understand the whole Lego phenomenon with regards to video games and television programming. Why have Lego “Indiana Jones” when you can just have a regular animated “Indiana Jones,” or Lego “Star Wars” when you can have a regular animated “Star Wars”? I don't understand it. ...

It's been a long time, and I mean a long time since M. Night Shyamalan has put a good film on the big screen. The writer, director and producer — known for his unique storytelling, great characters and creative twists at the turn of the 21st century with "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable" and "Signs" — has been absent a winner from an extended period of time. ...

Peter Berg steps away from his well-recognized, sports-related films to bring the story of the Boston Marathon bombing from 2013 to the big screen, introducing us to the victims, heroes and the two men who engineered the deadly bombing near the end of the annual Patriot's Day tradition...

Once more, Ben Affleck has put pen to paper and comfortably wriggled into the director’s chair to oversee the total development of his most recent starring project ― fear not, we’re not talking “Gigli 2,” ― instead it’s a gangster pic called “Live By Night.”...

As has become the case more and more frequently, stories ripped from the true heroic moments of history, are proving to be some of the best viewing in movie theaters across the country. Such is the case with “Hidden Figures,” based on a true story about three friends — all ambitious African American women — living in 1960s Virginia and working in a colored labor pool at NASA’s Langley operation in the early days of America’s developing space program...

When two passengers — top Hollywood stars Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence — on a 120-year voyage into space find themselves awoken from their hibernation state 90 years too early you have the basic premise for “Passengers” in a nutshell. Part of a group of 5,000 earthlings and 200-plus crew members aboard starship Avalon, headed to Homestead II, an Earth-like planet they have volunteered to help colonize, Jim Preston’s (Pratt) hibernation pod opens, 30 years into the 120-year trip. ...

The Jedi are absent and its up to a group of mish-mashed rebels to take on a desperate mission to steal the plans for the original Death Star to prevent the Rebellion from falling victim once and for all to the Galactic Empire in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”...

What happens when your firm is faced with the challenge of landing a major account or else while also trying to have a “traditional” office Christmas celebration? Well it’s not pretty I can tell you that. And such is the premise for “Office Christmas Party,” packed with a great comedic cast, this “holiday” — and I use the term loosely — film demonstrates exactly what goes on when you mix office staff, booze, drugs and business in your corporate offices...

So when 12 objects arrive on Earth and park themselves at 12 random locations around the globe, including one in Montana, what does the government do? They try to communicate and find out the intention of the uninvited guests. When they fail — because quite frankly they don’t speak the alien's language — where do they turn?...

I must be losing my sense of humor. It pains me to say it, but I’m having a hard time finding the funny in some of these so-called recent “comedy” releases and sometimes, I find I sit wondering after the movie why it was labeled a comedy. Such is the case for “The Edge of Seventeen.” I didn’t see it as a comedy. ...

Author J.K. Rowling has done it again, providing a framework of the fantastic and make believe for filmmakers to latch onto and bring to the big screen for audiences to marvel at. "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is set several decades before the tales that encompassed Rowling's beloved Harry Potter and friends. ...

Since his meltdown, Mel Gibson has been pretty quiet. Well he’s back and in a big way with “Hacksaw Ridge,” a World War II story based on real-life unconventional war hero Desmond Doss (portrayed with amazing realism by Andrew Garfield — yes, cancelled reboot Spider-Man, who knew?)...

If and when you go see Marvel’s newest entry into the super hero realm “Doctor Strange,” I dare you to do so in 3-D. C’mon I dare you. Despite suggestions that I catch it in 3-D (as one of the rare movies that’s probably really worth the extra charge), I hit the 2-D version for purposes of this review. And 2-D provided what must be equivalent to a bad LSD experience at times, I can’t imagine what kind of sensory overload it would provide in 3-D. But I’m probably going to go find out.