Movie Review: The Lion King

There was a rare treat at the AMC this week (and you can still catch it for the rest of this week), but Disney’s Lion King is playing in theatres again. I was really astounded how well the animated classic really held up to time. It didn’t look like it had ages. Some of that could be that the movie is centered around animals, not people, so there is no technology to get bogged down with. I honestly haven’t watched the movie in quite some time, but having watched it over and over again when I was a lot younger made everything familiar. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It reminds me what made Disney so great back before some of their lesser movies. Something about Lion King just resonates on a different level than some of the other Disney movies from the same generation. As I watched the movie, I tried to put my finger on it, but to no avail.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all positive. Given the state of the world now, and my new Hina test, I have to admit, if you were looking at racial or gender equality, this movie has very little for you. This movie gets a hard fail at my Hina test. There is really no diversity, it is almost implied that everyone is categorically white, even though they are animals. The use of light and dark (Scar/Hyenas) makes that even more clear. The few female characters are just used as pawns, pieces to move the story forward, nothing more. It was almost painful to witness now. I wanted to go back to those thoughtless, worry-free (Hakuna Mattata anyone?), but that was just at the periphery of my mind.

To make matters worse, the movie was playing in a small theatre, but there were three kids in there that made it near impossible for the movie to be really enjoyed. One kid, clearly under two, could not sit still or not make noise. His older brother was equally restless. The parents were trying, but they refused to leave the theatre, thus subjecting the rest of the movie goers to two hours of these disruptions. As the movie got close to the end, a third, unrelated child joined in. At no point did an usher from AMC come through, so there was no oversight. I’m proud of myself for not saying anything, but I still need to get to the point where it shouldn’t bother me. I didn’t pay to be annoyed by someone’s children. I don’t understand why the parents didn’t just leave. They both knew what they were allowing and didn’t care. To be that thoughtless and self-involved really speaks to who they are. If they hadn’t been white, I doubt they would have stayed.

Movie Review: Atomic Blonde

The summer of women empowerment movies seems to continue, though this one didn’t resonate quite as much as Wonder Woman did. This movie was very much a spin on James Bond, but with a strong female character in the lead role. The story is not as strong as it believes it is. There is a lot of action and that takes away from the hollow takeaway. The star of the movie is Lorraine, an otherwise unnamed spy who works for British intelligence. She is tasked with acquiring a list of all spies ever during the falling of the Berlin Wall in Berlin itself from a Russian defector and a fellow British spy. There are tons of things that get in the way to getting the list out, but ultimately the spy overcomes all obstacles to succeed.

I’ve never been a huge fan of spy movies. While I do love action movies, the predictability of knowing there are going to be dozens of betrayals makes the movie tiresome, and there might be SPOILERS ahead. I wonder if I’m just burned out on the idea. Charlize Theron is stunning as the blonde bombshell that beats the stuffing out of her attackers. I do find it interesting that the movie takes a page from Daredevil and the pummeling scenes continue for quite long periods of time, no enemy going down with just one hit, either from a fist or a bullet. James McAvoy plays opposite Theron as another spy, one who’s allegiance we’re constantly reminded need to be questioned. She also meets a French operative played by Sofia Boutella. There is a calm humanizing aspect to Theron’s interactions with Boutella, but the pairing still seems strange and caustic. There is a particularly graphic bedroom scene shared between the two that is jarring to watch. It also minimized the impact/effect of Boutella on Theron, more on that later. While I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the movie, it had little staying power and didn’t inspire me as Wonder Woman did. However the two movies could not be any more dissimilar save for the fact that both are led by strong female characters. 

With respect to the Hina test, this movie gets a barely passing grade. Yes, the movie had a strong female character in it. Yes, there was one minority character in it, but she was (SPOILER) killed during the movie, bringing some question to the fact that either the director thought he would vary the concept of ‘bury your gays’ in his movie. It was commendable to see Theron’s spy played as bisexual. It brought that decision into question by killing off the love interest. Most spy movies do this, though, so then I’m not sure if this is falling into a trope, or into an inevitable trap for the story itself. I kept thinking, after McAvoy kills Boutella, how interesting it would be to see Theron reunite with her somehow. To me, that would have made the movie, the story, more interesting. A missed opportunity. This movie is entertaining. For $7, it was well worth seeing.

Movie Review: Wish Upon

I might be trying to get back into going to the movies on a regular basis (hey, I have $15 in AMC bucks – very exciting!). As I’ve said countless times before, horror movies are pretty formulaic. Part one, establish a lovable loser type character. Part two, let lovable loser see a glimpse of what it would be like to not be loser through some sort of supernatural means that said loser doesn’t understand. Part three, everyone dies/suffers consequences. This is pretty much that, but slightly worse because the teen actors are kind of annoying, except it was nice to see Barb from Stranger Things alive and well!

The plot of the story is pretty simple. Young girl walks in on her mother committing suicide. Fast forward and her dad, for some reason dumpster dives as a career (Ryan Phillippe, what happened to you?) and finds something that he cleans up and gives to her. She can’t open it, takes a pic of it to school to her Chinese teacher (her high school teaches Chinese?) and ends up making a wish while holding it. Wackiness ensues. 

Some slight SPOLIERS ahead. Let’s face it, horror movies have a tough act to overcome. At some point, most scares have been done. Jump scares still get me to jump, but the cumulative effect is long gone. The rules of the movie didn’t seem to make sense either. The music box the dad gives his daughter is supposed to provide seven wishes (with no catches, which is kind of nice), but requires a blood price, ie, someone you care about/know dies. The variety of people who are killed strained the rule quite a bit. 

From the perspective of the Hina test, the lead was a girl, however selfish and stupid she was. Her friends comprised of a wide variety of people. It frustrated me that the friend who died was an African American gamer and a friend of a friend who helped her translate the Chinese, Asian, was killed. But Barb, from Stranger Things and the boy who she wanted to love her (white) were unharmed. I’m giving half points for having the diversity, but then killing off said diversity. It was cool to see Art from Orphan Black as the friend of the dad. I was worried Art was going to get killed. 

The movie is something you might watch on TV, but there is no staying power. The main girl doesn’t evoke any sort of real sympathy. I don’t want to be That Person, but I also found her not attractive at all. A movie like this would have been slightly more interesting if the main character had been a person of color. The movie had potential for something more and clearly just gave up.

Movie Review: Spiderman Homecoming

I believe this is the fourth or fifth reboot of Spiderman I’ve seen. There were at least two cartoons and three different movies. While we were teased this Spiderman in the last Avengers movie, this was the movie that let him stand on his own two feet. Before getting too far, I would like to point out, why is it the last two onscreen Spidermen were both British? Both Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland are Brits. Are there no American actors that can embody the wall crawler?

Unlike most super hero movies, this one does not open with an origin story. In this iteration of Spiderman, the fans are treated to a seeing Spiderman/Peter Parker after he has teamed up with the Avengers. The first sequence follows Parker as he is anxious to leave school and get out to be a super hero. It is a really cute sequence and proves how young Parker is compared to all the other super heroes. The only part of the origin story that the audience sees is his close friend Ned, finds out about him and tries to help him (the formulaic buddy part of the movie). 

While there is nothing really new that this movie brings to the table, it tries new things with mixed results. There may be SPOILERS beyond this point. There was a lot more diversity to be seen. The friend group at Peter’s science school was made up almost exclusively of minorities. It was a nice change of pace. Considering it was a special science school, it isn’t a reach to believe that the student body would be more diverse than your average school. I did find it slightly frustrating that Peter, the white kid, was of course the smartest and best at everything. I realize that is who he is in the comics, but it would have been a nice opportunity for the movies to diverge a little. Having said that, the friends surrounding Peter were well placed. I expect to see a lot of humor in Spiderman movies. I did wish that this version had Spidey himself being slightly funnier, but given that he’s new at super-heroing, it isn’t really surprising that the wise cracks weren’t constant.

There were quite a few cameos. The best was Captain America, by far, in this videos being shown at Peter’s school. Iron Man appeared a few times, but was more of a scolding figure than a guide. It set the tone that Peter was on his own, not a part of the Avengers, but someone who could assist them as needed. The stage has been set, another superhero for the Marvel Universe. After Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, the debacles of those two movies, this was a breath of fresh air. The movie and story were both enjoyable. We saw the movie in one of those fancy Dolby theatres and I was surprised the surround sound didn’t blow me out of my chair. The Marvel movies are always great and this was no exception.

With respect to my Hina test – the movie passes, but not by much. The movie centers around two white men, Spiderman and the Vulture. To make matters worse, so to speak, the guidance Peter gets is either from Happy, Tony Starks’ assistant or something, or Tony himself, also, all white men. The supporting cast is wonderfully diverse and it gave me hope for future movies. The female characters, especially Michelle, were strong, not always in need of Peter’s help, certainly not as Peter. 

Movie Review: Wonder Woman

The last DC Comics movie I saw was one of the Batman movies with that awful Christian Bale in it. I had debated seeing Suicide Squad, but the reviews kept me away. I’ve always been a Marvel fan (X-men mostly), but Batman was always interesting. I’ve never read a Wonder Woman comic, or really any comics that are female-centric, mostly because there really weren’t any growing up. I didn’t know the origin story for Wonder Woman, but I didn’t know the origin story for most of the Avengers characters either. While Wonder Woman is an absolute powerhouse of a movie, lots of action, lots of conflict, it lacked heart. I just never felt invested in the movie. The characters were real enough, though I felt more connected to the minor characters than the major ones, such as Wonder Woman herself and Chris Pine’s character, whose name I think was Steve, and thus got me confused with Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. There may be some SPOILERS ahead.

The story starts out with Diana getting an aged picture from Bruce Wayne. The movie shifts, without much of a transition, into the past, into Diana’s youth. The audience is treated to the island of the Amazons. There are no men and the women do everything. Diana is set on training to be a warrior even though her mother doesn’t want this. Ultimately, she gets the training and shows off things others can’t do. The island has been hidden from the world and a lone man comes crashing into the surrounding area (Chris Pine). He’s saved by Diana and a fleet of German soldiers are after him. They kill quite a few Amazons, including Diana’s aunt, who had been training her.

Of course, Diana’s mother forbids her to assist, but she defies her, joining Chris Pine to go back to the War (World War 1). Interestingly, Diana never seems to get cold even though she’s hardly wearing anything. There is a particularly humorous sequence with Chris Pine’s secretary Etta Candy (played by Lucy Davis, and she stole every scene she was in), where they dress Diana in regular clothes. Chris Pine’s character defies direct orders about the impending armistice and goes off to find a crazy scientist who is creating some toxin that will kill anything and everything it touches. The movie continues with a rapid pace through action sequences with a couple quiet moments before the main battle sequence occurs.

Visually, the movie was quite stunning. The special effects were quite impressive. I particularly liked the effect of the lasso that Wonder Woman uses. The acting was solid. I felt like there could have been a better balance between humor and action, or even humor during action sequences, but I guess that isn’t something DC comic movies can do. The story flowed fairly smoothly. I thought it surprising that Chris Pine’s character would sleep with Gal Gadot’s character, it didn’t really make sense and was only implied. For someone who is supposed to be a gentleman, that took me by surprise.

The real elephant in the room has to do with quality, I think. I’ve been struggling to put into words why I felt sort of unaffected by this movie. After most super hero movies, especially the Marvel ones, I feel better when I leave, inspired. I don’t know if I never felt drawn into this story. There was something about it that felt out of place. In my mind, I tried to compare it to Captain America, which was set in a similar time period (ie, the past) and things just stood out. While Diana was alone, Captain America knew the people he was working with, so the buddy part of the story worked differently. The romance between Diana and Steve Trevor (maybe?) vs. the romance between Captain America and that one agent was not at the forefront. I wonder if the writers made a concerted effort to put romance for all to see, since it has a woman lead. Why couldn’t Wonder Woman be awesome without having a guy in the picture. And really, was Steve Trevor the hero because he sacrificed himself to save those people, whereas Steve Rogers sacrificed himself to save the world. It isn’t a level playing field and that frustrated me. If this is the first step to women super heroes, great. But female super hero movies should be just as strong, the heroines just as strong, as their male counterparts. I don’t know what other people thought. This movie did not inspire me to want to see other DC movies, but it did give me hope that the next Wonder Woman movie might be better.

Movie Review: Alien Covenant

I really don’t know why I choose to see this movie. I’d seen Prometheus a few years back and didn’t really enjoy that. Something about space horror movies often gets my attention and this seemed to be no exception. I’m not sure if AMC tricked me with their movie times, but I just grabbed the earliest showing and ended up in fancy reclining chairs and spectacular surround sound. That was worth the $12 alone, even if the movie was a bit of a slow burn.

If, for some reason, you’re utterly unfamiliar with the premise of any and all Alien movies, fast forward a thousand years or so, space travel is normal and people are always searching for either new resources or new places to live. Without fail, the people end up finding some spooky abandoned something or another and end up getting found and attacked and ultimately killed by the Alien. In the first few movies, the ones from the 1980s, a lot was left to the imagination. There was no origin story for the Alien itself, which made for an even scarier premise. If you’re a video game fan at all, think the first Dead Space game vs. the third one. This is a similar de-evolution as the further the story goes into the lore, the less scary it becomes and more campy it becomes. This is very true for this movie.

Covenant is set ten years after Prometheus and there may be moderate SPOILERS after this. The new ship we’re on is a colony, looking for some far flung planet that people can move to. On the way there, they hit some sort of solar flare and have to stop to do repairs, overhearing a transmission that they decide to investigate. Needless to say, I’m like, no, how about you just stay on course and get going, but they decide the planet should be investigated since it is hospitable. Once they land, we see the space ship that crashed there during Prometheus and you pretty much know where the story is going.

The predictability of the story was really what made the movie drag. I almost enjoyed the slow burn of the beginning of the film, being introduced to all the different characters. I did find Katherine Waterston only slightly less likable than Rooney Mara, from the first movie. I am still waiting for a strong Ripley-like character to emerge from the lore, but so far, sad substitutes. The opening sequence with the crew was filled with senseless death and more of that followed. If anything, this movie played more like a slasher movie than an Alien movie. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll want to see it, but otherwise, I’m not sure there’s much to see.

As for the test of diversity and strong female characters, I’m going to have to give this movie a soft fail. Yes, the main character was a woman, but she had to be saved, more than once, by the straight white male characters. There was hardly any diversity, or at least the few people that weren’t white didn’t have too much to say or contribute. At least they weren’t the first to die, but it was close. Ultimately, having only white characters survive is also a sure sign that the writers/directors didn’t concern themselves with diversity. Overall, the movie was a disappointment.

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy 2

A sequel can rarely, if ever, live up to the original. The fact that the source material for this piece is so little known helps with the overall effect. I didn’t know anything about Peter Quill and crew until seeing the first movie and was pleasantly surprised where the second movie picked up where the first one left off. If you’re unfamiliar with Guardians of the Galaxy, you might be missing out on a diamond in the rough of oversaturation of comic book movies. On the one hand, I do wonder if Marvel and ABC are just bringing anything and everything out because they can make it marketable. On the other hand, the movie is well done and the characters are fully developed, even if we don’t always know as much as we would like of them.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 picks up with the group working for some superior alien race, protecting their batteries from another alien. It isn’t long before wackiness ensues and the team breaks up into smaller groups, only to be reconnected later in the movie. I will do my best to avoid any SPOILERS, but there could have been far more scenes with the core cast than there were, yet still, the breakoff groups were equally effective. It was nice to see more from Drax and a newcomer, Mantis. Together, those two were quickly stealing the scenes that were previously stolen by Rocket and Groot. Seeing a baby Groot made things cute, but also made me wonder about the whole BB-8/Groot dynamic, having a character that can’t really communicate but is cute. Isn’t that a staple of everything Disney?

I really had little to complain about. I would say, as far as the Hina test goes, this barely gets a passing grade. Most of the movie centered around white men. There were other alien races, but for the most part, they were either wearing tons of makeup or looked white/gold. The Alt Right was perfectly represented by the golden aliens from the beginning. Even if Gamora had a prominent role, it still felt like she was firmly in second place to Peter Quill. I couldn’t tell someone not to watch this movie, but by that same token, I couldn’t tell you it was must see either. I enjoyed it and that’s really all I can take away from the experience.