Hello 3.5 readers.
Been totes busy lately but have had time to catch some flicks. Don’t think I’ll find time to review, so here are some quick thoughts:
The Courier – Historical drama/real life story of an Average Joe British salesman recruited to deliver messages between the CIA and MI6 and a high ranking Russian government official during the 1960s, helping to bring the Cuban Missile Crisis to a resolution in the process. Not a fun movie but you’ll learn stuff, so that’s good.
The Marksman – Liam Neeson as a bitter old rancher and ex-Marine who feels like his life doesn’t matter much anymore in the wake of his wife’s death and the bank’s foreclosure on his home. Finds a purpose in rescuing a young Mexican immigrant boy from a cartel who is chasing him.
Above Suspicion – I think this movie is below the Khaleesi. HBO alums Emilia Clarke and Jack Hudson (she of Game of Thrones and He of Boardwalk Empire) star in this glorified Lifetime channel for women movie and true crime story about Mark Putnam, the first FBI agent to ever go to jail after killing an informant he was having an affair with. There are parts of the story that are gripping, but you do have to put up with a) two Brits doing their best Southern caricatures and b) it portrays, at least in my opinion, Putnam as this poor guy who had it all – married family man with an up and coming career and this evil temptress had to go and ruin and it by seducing him and I don’t know…don’t FBI agents/married men have a duty to rebuff their female informants advances and go home and take a cold shower? And if they don’t, isn’t the better option to confess to your superiors and take whatever legal and or career ending punishments coming to you before things turn violent and ugly?
Nobody – This stars Bob Odenkirk so I thought it’d be funny but it wasn’t. The overall plot is a seemingly mild mannered Dad loses his family’s respect when a pair of robbers break into his home and he does nothing to stop them. When we learn Dad was once a highly trained government assassin who has long since left that life behind, he falls back on those kills to go on a vigilante spree….and it sort of looks like it’s going to become a copycat of Deathwish but then it devolves into this meandering plot about Odenkirk taking on the Russian mob and his brother RZA and father Christopher Lloyd also have assassin skills though how this happened is never quite explained other than brief references to them having served in the Army. I like Odenkirk and while the film is worth a watch, I think this movie suffers from not knowing what it wanted to be so it tried to be too much and needed to settle on a plot.
Mortal Kombat – First ten minutes where bitter martial arts rivals Sub-Zero and Scorpion fight in Ancient Times over who is Asia’s greatest warrior are pretty kickass. If they had made this the entire movie, it would have been spectacular. Alas, after this, it devolves into the standard video game based movie mess where they crowbar in all the characters, all the punchlines, all the special moves and what have you. Most video game movies are terrible largely because what makes a video game great (brainless, repetitive drivel) makes a movie bad (brainless, repetitive drivel) but there’s a lesson here for Hollywood that if a game has a nugget of awesome storyline, focus on that. An entire movie about two ancient ninjas fighting to the death to be named Asia’s greatest warrior sounds pretty cool to me.
King vs. Godzilla – Fast forward to the last twenty minutes. Eat some popcorn to the fight scene. Ignore all the parts with the humans talking. You’re welcome.
Bookshelf Battle 