Least Favourite Movies of 2016

1. The Forest - While Natalie Dormer is good the film falls on many cliches and ends disappointingly. 
2. Independence Day: Resurgence - Entertaining to a point, this sequel is bloated with too many characters, crappy effects and no real ending. 
3. Allied - Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard are game along with the rest of the cast, but while the effects are worth while and the attention to detail is extraordinary, its sadly boring and not entertaining in the slightest. 
4. The Legend of Tarzan - Alexander Skarsgard is the perfect Tarzan, and Margot Robbie is a terrific love interest but Christopher Waltz is  boring villain, the CGI is sloppy in parts and the story lacks any real value or threat. 
5. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back - The first Jack Reacher film became a real treat for me so I had really been looking forward to this. It wasn't too terrible but the story was boring and again the villain was no one of high value (can we get someone like Sean Bean or Tom Hardy). Overall not a great night at the movies but not a terrible one.  

Favourite Movies of 2016

1. Captain America: Civil War - Avengers 2.0, this marvel flick finally brings in Spider-man! 
2. The Jungle Book - A classic tale reborn with superb special effects and top notch acting! 
3. 10 Cloverfield Lane - Tense and claustrophobic, John Goodman surprises! 
4. Arrival - Science fiction at its best with a scene stealing performance by Amy Adams! 
5. Finding Dory - A sequel that was truly worth the wait with a heartwarming story to boot! 
6. The Conjuring 2 - A horror sequel that breaks the trend of bad horror sequels! 
7. Sully - Starring Tom Hanks, directed by Clint Eastwood, dreams really do come true!
8. Doctor Strange - A unique origins story with an amazing cast and terrific direction! 
9. Lights Out - Highly original, smart, scary and emotional, it also ends with a shocker! 
10. Star Trek: Beyond - Fun and exciting, this chapter finally goes deeper with its characters! 

Doctor Strange Review

Story: Dr. Stephen Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch) life changes after a car accident robs him of the use of his hands. When traditional medicine fails him, he looks for healing, and hope, in a mysterious enclave. He quickly learns that the enclave is at the front line of a battle against unseen dark forces bent on destroying reality. Before long, he's forced into choosing between a life of fortune or a life of being the only defence for the world as the most powerful sorcerer in existence. 

The 14th film in the ever growing Marvel saga, we now see magic introduced to the cinematic universe. You are spellbound from the moment the movie starts, even with the new logo for Marvel they had my heart pumping.

 A new origins story now having come after one of the biggest hits of this past summer, Captain America: Civil War, Strange had a lot to live up to, and it did its part. Coming into Doctor Strange I really was unsure of where the film would go. I went to see the film in both IMAX 3D and 3D so I have seen the film twice now, it is a joyride of a film. But, on first viewing, I found the film was going so far into the recesses of unknown realities that my own mind started to bend.

Visually, the film is astounding, strange and scary at parts (one should note that the director is known for his horror films such as Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose), man does Marvel know how to pick them. The sequence where Strange is first given a taste of the ancient one's abilities, its like going on a roller coaster. Hold your breathe and prepare to be flown across the known universe. So much visual creations are thrown at you that it was hard at times to keep focus. If you keep your eyes from melting you'll see some visual references to the work of Steve Ditko (Spider-man, Doctor Strange), who did some crazy designs within the comic book that they included them in the film. The bending of realities and the way they are able to visually portray magic is beyond amazing. Every time they fight its like re-watching Inception. Yes, there are some huge fight sequences that seem to take visual cues from that amazing mind bending film by Christopher Nolan. I am sure it was all just coincidence, its great anyways too and makes the fight scenes even crazier. The end battle is also flipped on its head and is another visual achievement, Doctor Strange and The Jungle Book defiantly deserve Oscar nods for their work. An note to the director, get out to New Line Cinema about doing A Nightmare on Elm Street, with what you've done on Doctor Strange and Sinister I am sure you'd be able to make Freddy scary again.

   Let's get the whitewashing controversy over with shall we. Tilda Swinton plays the ancient one, there has been more than one ancient one, so there are different ethnic groups who take on the role of the ancient one. Tilda is terrific, amazing and was a thrill to watch. She brought a smile to my face as her and Ben meet. Its a great back and forth. Benedict is by far a unique choice to star in a film such as this. He brings a certain melancholy  to his role, and his accent is actually pretty good. He trys to make Wong (played by funny enough Benedict Wong) to laugh, get into Beyonce. He does do both, when he laughs its at a surprising moment. Rachel McAdams, who stars as Strange's estranged lover and college plays her part with great strength and realism. Its the scenes she and Ben share that I loved the most. The two have a very powerful scene in Strange's apartment when he accuses her about wanting to get back with him. Christine trys to tell him that there's more out their than just his hands and then he bluntly asks "what, like you!" The power in this scene is so real, so emotional. It just proves the strength and pure talent these actors have. Its not like that scene in Spider-man 3 between Mary Jane and Peter, the actors play to their strengths and play the characters with real push.  Chiwetel who plays Mordo, friend to Stephen, goes mysterious with his role and does a great job at keeping Mordo from going too evil or too good. He's in-between, neutral. He sides with what he believes the ancient one stands for. He and Wong are powerful in their roles, they play their characters with true strength. As with the whole cast not one of them plays it hammy or sloppy or cheesy. Again, going back to Spider-man 3, the scene where Peter and Mary Jane are on the bridge as she has to break up with him, they both are crying but it feels forced, it doesn't feel real. What I wish happened was that Tobey played his part less with forced tears and more power, some angst. Again, I love that movie but in Doctor Strange the actors are serious, no funny business. They play the parts like their life is on the line.

    Mads Mikkelsen (who played Hannibal Lector) plays Kaecilius, that goes against the ancient one in order to bring the dark force Dormammu in order to keep people from dying. He plays his part, like the rest of the cast, with true strength and vulnerability.  I felt Mads played a great role and was the most engaging villain since Jeff Bridge's turn in Iron Man. It has been an issue that Marvel never seems to have any villains that are very engaging or interesting. I feel Mads does break the chain, he's an astounding actor and thats what is needed more of. A good villain consists of either one who was a friend or ally to the hero or a very character driven actor. Here's my list of favourite villains: Jeff Bridges from Iron Man, Tom Hiddleston from The Avengers, Robert Redford from Winter Solider, and Sebastian Stan from Winter Solider/Civil War.

Doctor Strange has astounding 3D visuals, a great musical score, a strong cast and a brilliantly original well written origins story. This film is the best movie so far in the marvel series. I love DC and their movies too, Man of Steel was a grande action packed superman movie and suicide squad gave us the cinematic representation of Harley Quinn!!! Plus Batman v Superman, while the battle was short it had a great performance by Ben Affleck, but Marvel sadly started out sooner, 2008, and while they have had films that are mediocre (Thor: The Dark World, The Incredible Hulk) but they learned from their mistakes and kept trying to make better films, Thor Ragnarok looks to improve on what went wrong in Thor 2, Iron Man 3 mostly made up for Iron Man 2 and Winter Solider defiantly improved on Captain America: The First Avenger.

Rating - A

Inferno Review

Story: When famous symbologist Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) wakes up in an italian hospital with amnesia, he teams up with Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) in the hopes of gaining his memories back. With the government hot on their tails Robert and Sienna race against time to stop a madman (Ben Foster) from releasing literal hell on earth. 

It's been 7 years since we last saw the cinematic appearance of the symbology professor Robert Langdon, too long in fact, and it has been with great excitement and glee that I was overjoyed to find a new follow-up has been unleashed.

 Based on the 2013 novel of the same name Inferno, the 4th book in the Robert Langdon series, we see a different side to Robert as events spiral out of his control and we are lost in the dark as he is. The difference, he's suffering from amnesia. Its an interesting change to a character who has been known to use his brain a lot. Another difference from previous instalments is the change in from religious undertones about the church and a focus on Dante's inferno and over-population.

Ron Howard returns to direct Tom Hanks in this third adaptation, I could never imagine one of these without Ron Howard. He gives these films a quality that you don't get in most franchise pictures. While these films are not oscar worthy, they are fun packed action thrillers that make you think.

I will start with the major changes this film adaptation makes, it does have a bit of a more hollywood feel as its gained controversy for its change to the ending. With past films/books Dan Brown's books have endings that leave you thinking. Ron Howard's adaptations do take some liberties with the material, Angels & Demons makes a small alteration having a character who died in the book survive in the film. The virus that is set to be unleashed is more of a threat in the film than in the book and while in the book its more tragic, the film sets itself with a more less darker ending. The change will have readers of the books up in arms. I, however, feel the change does not effect the story and does still provide an ending that can still be talked about.

Inferno is a very interesting and fascinating beast as it deals with the subject of over-population and how the main antagonist seeks to decrease it. The twist in the book is that prior to anyone's knowledge the virus had already been released before the events of the novel and there really was
nothing anyone could do. However, this version does not kill but upon release will make half the earth's population infertile. The overall new ending, making the virus more of a deadly infection and W.H.O being able to seal it before exposure, I find is even more tragic as without the said infection life on earth will end for us. It is true, our species has grown immensely with more animal species going extinct and the ever coming true fear that one day humans may go extinct the way of the dodo bird. Inferno's new ending is more tragic in the way that we just sweep the problem under the rug when something like this can have one of the worst impacts in human history.

Compared with the first two films Inferno has a less bigger budget, having being made on a 75 million, and it is the best thing to happen to this series. Why? The previous films used a fair amount of CGI and I felt this took you out of the movie. Its true that it had to be done in order for the sets to look like the locations in the books and a cast of highly well known talent (Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Ewan McGregor) In the end I found that the lower budget gave the film a more grounded, realistic feel. The cast (Felicity Jones, Ben Foster, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan) is not as famous but is very talented and multi-cultural, diverse. One major aspect of the film that I loved was no CGI. This added to the overall realism. It made the film even more enjoyable in IMAX as the scenery is a wonder to behold.

One quick aspect of Inferno is that Hans Zimmer did return to score. I'll go into more detail about the score on my other site but will give a quick rundown of my feelings. I was not fond of the electronic aspect he took with Inferno and preferred the orchestral flow he did with Angels & Demons. Hans brings back themes from the first two films and does have tracks without the electronic tunes.

Inferno is a perfectly solid adaption, with the returns of Ron Howard as director, Tom Hanks as the lead, Hans Zimmer as the composer and Brian Grazer as producer. Cinematographer Salvatore Totino also returns, continuing to give the series its epic scope.

The sad news is this will probably be the final film in this franchise as even with the lower budget the film only made barely over 150 mill, the budget of Angels & Demons. Tom and Ron do a fantastic job though in closing the doors as we finally get some insight something we never learned, his love life. I was also pleased with the nightmare sequences as they were a perfect treat and another part of the film I had been looking forward to.

Goodbye Professor, you took us on a marvellous journey and as one great writer once said;

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end - Ernest Hemingway

3 1/2 out of 4

Jack Reacher 2 Review

Story: Jack Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy in order to clear his name. On the run as a fugitive from the law, Reacher uncovers a potential secret from his past that could change his life forever. 

  Reacher, Jack Reacher. Is he the next James Bond for American audiences? Has Tom decided to take over the role of badass cop aka Bruce Willis. Who knows, as far as this franchise goes looks like a bit of both.

    Jack Reacher is an interesting character as he's a drifter, one who drifts from town to town looking for something or someone. In the first film, Jack sought to put an old rival behind bars, now he's gotten entangled in one woman's quest to find the truth. For starters, the sequel has some good points. Cobie Smoulders smoulders on screen as the new female lead, she even by passes Rosamund Pike, as she stands toe to toe with Tom. Honestly like Ilsa Faust from the new MI5, Cobie needs to come back for another one. One of my favourite moments when she and Reacher argue about how he treats women, how he treats her.

    As supporting roles go Danika Yarosh reminded me of a young Patricia Arquette, she's strong willed, fierce, firert, and spirited. Aldis Hodge who plays Officer Espin plays an interesting role of one who just wants to do the right thing and I feel is like a young Jack Reacher. A surprise note is that he starred in two Die Hard films, both the third chapter and the most resent one. These films have a habit of casting actors from Die Hard films, Jai Courtney from the first film (Jack Reacher: One Shot) played the son of Bruce Willis from A Good Day to Die Hard). This film actually does follow a similar story, A Good Day to Die Hard deals with Bruce 's character trying to rework his relationship with his son just as Jack Reacher deals with the thoughts that he may have a daughter. While both deal with the similarities with their kids, Jack's story is more mysterious as he does not know if she is her daughter. It also adds a more emotional backbone to the film with a truly emotional climax.

The sequel is not without its downsides. While the father/daughter side plot drives Reacher's character and develops him as more than just a drifter, the main plot has much to be desired. It starts off easy enough as the woman Jack comes to see is behind bars. He makes an effort to help, even when she doesn't want it. He saves her, she makes an effort to do things the right way. They break out
and are on the run. The story doesn't pick up for a while and you're left wondering whats going on. It turns out to be some sort of money laundering situation with her two lieutenants dead and she is accused of doing it. Then there's this clean up service, a general who is wanting the mess cleaned up , fake guns being sold? I'm still a little confused. Jack's first outing was simple, did the guy kill all those people? Simple and to the point. As well as the villain, Werner Herzog was a way better villain. And this time, Jack Reacher does not kill the bad guy? He said in the first film that a prison would not hold him, Werner, so in order to stop him he kills him. Simple and to the point.

  Honestly, the first film has grown on me. Christopher Mcquarrie was a great director making the first film in the vein  of action films of the 80s like Road House. There was a limit to the music, a car chase without a background score actually makes you focus on what's going on. It was gritty, intense, shocking, surprising and the story was tight. With the sequel the tone is lifted a bit, its lighter in tone and more in tune with today's action flicks with a love interest, sprinkled humour, an action packed score and a sprawling tale about government conspiracies. Henry Jackman is the shining light as I love him as a composer and he does a terrific job at making a score thats fully entertaining and emotional.

As with the length of the two films I found chapter two to be a little too long. Again, the story in parts didn't seem to go anywhere, it dragged. Action heavy or not the story I wish was more to the point, as I keep saying.  I'd say the main issue with the sequel is with its story and changes in tone.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is a sequel that is a different beast with more of a lighter tone, more action and a sprawling story. Its one adventure that takes Jack on a journey of self discovery. What really makes this sequel stand up to the first film is its leads. Cobie and Tom work so well together its like magic. Can Jack Reacher reach the heights of M:I? No. Is it an enjoyable time at the movies?its not bad. I love Tom Cruise and this film was a good solid thriller. New lead Cobie Smoulders is excellent.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back has a solid cast, entertaining action scenes, and a solid emotional backbone that develops Jack's character but lacks a coherent story.

3 out of 4 stars

Jason Bourne Review

Story: The CIA's most dangerous operative is drawn back out of the shadows to uncover more explosive truths about his past.

It's been 10 years since Matt Damon last played the amnesiatic spy Jason Bourne, now he's back with director Paul Greengrass as they bring back our favourite action hero. Times have changed  and now black-ops and government agencies have taken the war on terror online as what is known as cyber-warfare.

The new film brings into the fold a new set of actors and characters. Alicia Vikander plays the role of CIA head of cyber ops division Heather Lee.  She is fantastic in the role and brings great dimension to the character. I found her very believable in the role and felt she was excellent going toe to toe with both Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones and Vincent Cassel. Vincent plays the role of a Blackbriar asset who holds a grudge against Bourne for the aftermath following the events of Ultimatum. Vincent is terrific in the role and is a step up from the previous antagonist from Legacy. Vincent's asset has more of an arc and is more of a well rounded character. Tommy plays CIA director Robert Dewey and as always he nails the part. Following in the line of excellent actors from Chris Cooper and Joan Allen, to David Strathairn and Edward Norton he gives a resounding performance and he is a pure joy to watch. His and Vincent's characters hold secrets to Bourne's past and is a nice change having the asset and government agent have past connections.

The cast is excellent, the only complaint I have is the story needs to be more tightly knit. I just found that too much was going on and was a little hard to follow. A second viewing might be beneficial.

The actor from Nightcrawler, Riz Ahmed plays the head of social media enterprise that CIA Robert Dewey helped get started. It's nice to see Riz have a decent role in a summer action blockbuster. He plays one of the side characters that was a bit breezed over. Also, Julia Stiles returns as Nicky Parsons who informs Bourne about new information about his past connections to Treadstone. Both Riz and Julia are excellent in their parts and Julia gives a performance that adds new layers to her character.

Another great return is John Powell, composer of the first three movies, who this time teams up with composer David Buckley (The Good Wife). It's excellent to hear the old themes again.

The fifth instalment in this action franchise, Jason Bourne, holds up pretty well with a story that might be a little too complicated to follow at first but has a terrific cast and a great return by Matt Damon, John Powell and Paul Greengrass. With a franchise still full of more stories to tell, this series is still going strong. Next, The Cross Conspiracy? The Bourne Betrayal?

Rating: B+

X-men Apocalypse Review

Story: With the emergence of the world's first mutant, Apocalypse, the X-men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan.

Teased at the end of 2014's Days of Future Past, the story of the x-men's battle with the first mutant Apocalypse has come. Bryan Singer returns to direct this concluding chapter of the prequel trilogy which started with Matthew Vaughn's 60s auctioneer X-men: First Class and continued with Bryan Singer's return to the franchise X-men: Days of Future Past.

X-men: Apocalypse sees the rise of the most powerful mutant in the comics history and the true birth of the original x-men, Storm, Jean Grey and Cyclops. What is also worthwhile noting this film does all it can to keep true to the comics and come full circle within its 16 year cinematic history.

The film starts off with an exciting prologue narrated by the new Xavier (James McAvoy) and shows the beginnings of the first mutant apocalypse. After he is betrayed and buried alive we travel forward to the 1980s where we finally see the origins of the first x-men, Scott Summers. He's played with snarky intent by new comer Tye Sheridan. Tye makes for a much better Scott as he adds more layers to the character and actually makes him more suave, a more bad boy persona. Alexandra Shipp plays the role of Ororo Munroe aka Storm. We see her character's origins as she starts off as a mutant using her powers for thievery and she didn't always have the white hair. She is the first to meet apocalypse and become the first of his four horsemen. Alexandra is actually quiet good in the role, a surprise for an actress new to the film scape. She does a great job with the accent and is very defining in her role. I do feel Alexandra loves playing the character, it shows.

Time has passed and both Xavier and Eric are living their lives, Xavier has finally opened his school for the gifted and has become ever closer to the Patrick Stewart version of 2000. As for Eric, his character is living in peace with a good job and a wife and child, things are good. Raven, meanwhile, has become a saviour to mutants as she hunts down mutants in need. She rescues Nightcrawler (played wonderfully by Kodi Smit-McPhee) from a fighting ring similar to the one that contained Logan in the first film. The new angel is also seen in the fight as Nightcrawler's adversary. New comer Ben Hardy plays Angel and while there's not much of a backstory to his character (he got more of a backstory in The Last Stand) he eventually becomes one of the four horsemen and his transformation is both cool and terrifying. Olivia Munn (from the gamer program Attack of the Show) surprises as the character Psylocke. She is fantastic in the role and even did sword training for it. Her costume is identical to the one in the comics and she clearly is playing the role of Psylocke. She too becomes a follower of Apocalypse and is the one who leads him to Angel. The remaining Horseman is Eric, who goes down a dark path in this film. We see Michael Fassbender tap into Magneto's inner struggle to be good like Charles and live along side man, but when the family he tried to build is accidentally killed it triggers his inner anger and out of spite he joins Apocalypse in his mission to remake the world.

As villains go I was most excited about Apocalypse and how fascinating of a character he is. The costume is nearly spot on but one thing that is done right is the feeling of dread when he is near. I would smile whenever I saw him on screen but that is just due to the fact that I love his character so much. Oscar Issac does an amazing job humanizing him and acting under all the layers of prosthetics. Apocalypse is by far the most deadliest villain the x-men have faced as he uses Magneto to tap in to his inner power which leads to some of the biggest disaster sequences in the franchise. For those worried about how Apocalypse may be portrayed have no fear as the character stays true to the comic and is a true terror.

The film also sees a return of Alex Summers, Moira MacTaggert, Quicksilver and Stryker, as well as Wolverine. There is a terrific segment that sets up the future finale for Wolverine and finally brings the Weapon X story to the screen in the proper way.

And before I forget we also see new intros to such beloved X-men as Jubilee and Jean Grey. Sophie Turner is beautiful as Jean. She plays the role with amazing strength and portrays Jean's inner struggle perfectly, its a great start to reworking the eventual story of the phoenix (and yes there is an awesome easter egg in the final battle which confirms her eventual turn into the fiery bird).  Vietnamese actress Lana Condor plays Jubilee and while she gets more screen time than she has previously and looks great in a costume inspired by her appearing in the 90s cartoon she sadly still does not use her powers. Fingers crossed her role gets enlarged down the road.

Music wise John Ottman returns for his third go around as composer. He is at his all time best in this series and it will be sad to see him go as he collaborates solely with Bryan Singer (Like Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass on the Bourne movies). He's done another amazing job composing the score for this epic finale and it is great to see him and Bryan complete something that they started together (though Michael Kamen scored X-men with Bryan Singer back in 2000 before his death.)

X-men: Apocalypse is a brilliant finale to the excellent prequel trilogy and is a major step above X-men: The Last Stand. To be frank I feel other critics were very harsh with this film as they saw it as nothing more than a boring, dull retread of things that have been done before. I for one was never once bored with the film, found it extremely entertaining and feel that the familiarity was a good thing. Other issues had been with the length of the film, lack of original villain and over abundance in action scenes. To clarify the length of the film was never an issue for me as the film flew by with excellent pace. Being a fan of Oscar Isaac I loved his portrayal of Apocalypse and felt him to be the first villain in the series to create world wide destruction. Maybe overall he's not the most original villain in film but within the x-men series he would only closely resemble the villain Sebastian Shaw as he too wanted to recreate the world but for mutants, apocalypse sought to rid the world of humanity and the weak, only the strong would survive.

If you loved the previous instalments or just plain love superhero movies, this one is a must see. Maybe not as excellent as Days of Future Past, Apocalypse is still a fun popcorn film to see this summer.

Rating: A-