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I'm tired, so I'm not going to write all my thoughts, but I'll share the big ones. It's not scary. There you go. There's a few creepy moments here and there, but surprisingly didn't jump once while watching nor am I scared by Pennywise. Depending on your fear of clowns or amaze of Skasgard's acting job, the results may vary. But that said, the movie is badass. I view this as more like an Evil Dead or Drag Me To Hell type movie. Where, like there are creepy and disturbing shit happening, but you more react like, "Ooo, that's cool. That was awesome." Whenever Pennywise was on-screen, I was just fucking entertained, so that's how I view it. When he started dancing, I was on the verge of laughing. My dad also compared the movie to Beetlejuice, which is a perfect comparison. IT (2017) is basically an R-rated The Goonies with Beetlejuice thrown in, and it is awesome.

What elevates this movie up even further is that it has lovable characters you actually want to see come out on top, something I can't say for other horror installments lately. Bill and Georgie's relationship was actually heartbreaking, when I didn't expect it to be. Overall, just a lovable gang of outsiders who have to take on a killer clown. Great stuff here and so many good quotes from each the kids. But yeah, it's not scary, but it's slick, stylish, fucking hilarious at times, has a couple creepy moments, and Pennywise is the demonic Beetlejuice of modern movies. I'm actually looking forward to Chapter Two.

Star Wars jokes, huh, Disney? Not trying to be subtle anymore?

It's a remake of Spider-Man 2. Now I know that's a dumb criticism to be made, because really, how many different stories for a Spider-Man movie can you do at this point? Well, actually a lot! There's how many fucking comic books stories from The Amazing Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man that Marvel Studios and Sony could've pulled from? But NOPE. We get an almost scene-by-scene copy of Spider-Man 2 with Toby Maguire. And my biggest problem with that decision, is they didn't ever top that film once in the entire run-time. There's even a scene that directly mirrors the "Raindrops are falling on my head" scene from 2, where Parker is now an ordinary guy without the suit. What a joke.

Without comparing to the original movies, what are some positives? Tom Holland is a great choice for Peter Parker, and he sticks closer to the age and personality of the original comics. I love him from The Lost City Of Z by James Gray, so it was cool to see him get a big role like this. The spidey-suit upgrades were an inventive fun thing to watch, so that added a little humorous element to the story, even if it was a little too reminiscent of the Ant-Man we just got, but Tom Holland makes it work. A couple of the jokes landed really good, especially the acting from Jon Favreau, but there were multiple desperate attempts at using memes to get younger viewers to laugh, and that got annoying. Diego Tutweiller has an excellent essay about the "Humor of Juxtaposition" in Marvel movies, so go read that too. JMichael Keaton as the villain was a fantastic choice. He doesn't have any super-insane freak-out moments, but his intimidation was what made his character interesting. And also, with the way they wrote him, you can't really love or hate him. I was actually just a sliver sympathetic towards the end when he's explaining his actions to Peter Parker. But I never felt any of the dramatic weight that I did in the originals.

And this is where I get into my major problem with this movie and the other MCU movies. They feel so disconnected from the real world, that what they Avengers do have no effect on civilization and not a single person is affected by their actions. Why don't we get to see the reactions of people getting killed when a plane crashes into a city-scope tower? It's obvious people were harmed and killed, but why don't we see that? Because Marvel wants to keep their movies fun and accessible to wide-spread audiences. All the dramatic tension in every single Marvel movie I've seen so far, is so superficial and without consequence. Call me biased to DC all you want, I'm not, but at least in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, you see the effects that Superman's attack on Zod had on Metropolis and the world. You see the people who were affected by those actions, IE, the little girl who lost her mother, the employee at Wayne enterprises who lost his legs, etc. We never see anything like that in the MCU movies, Spider-Man Homecoming included. The only time it gets even close to this aspect is when Peter's Decathlon class is stuck in an elevator about to drop, or the ferry with people on it. But just like the other movies, it plays it up for laughs, so there's no serious weight to the situation, because you know none of them are going to be killed, and you don't see any people really cowering in fear. You know what would've made that ferry scene work even better? Seeing a mother protect maybe a child in her arms, and then seeing Peter Parker's reaction, realizing the gravity of the situation. But NOPE. We have a fat black guy say, "Yeah, go Spider-man!" What the fuck.

I firmly believe at this point no one will ever make a Spider-Man or superhero movie in general that tops Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2. Do people just not understand what made that movie so incredible? People sure like to praise, but do they really know why?

I actually first got introduced to David F. Sandberg from seeing his mainstream theatrical production, Annabelle: Creation. Once I looked him up online, I had no idea he was the man behind creating those fantastic and viral horror shorts on Youtube. Later on, I sat down and watched the feature-length, Lights Out, which I really loved. But as for his first-time short films, they're all perfection in a hand basket. All of the ones he's done, including the original Lights Out short, are genuinely creepy and tension-filled little moments captured brilliantly on camera. My favorite of his currently is the 2014 Pictured. Right from the get-go, the short starts off creepy with a rather grainy and faded picture of a creepy-looking girl standing on a sidewalk. From there, the short escalates, as the girl in the picture escapes and manipulates the photograph, taunting the owner in the house. The brilliant use of sound and finale set-up make this one of my new favorites. When she's putting her hand up and and down and the girl in the picture moves each time she does this, I got braced for impact and I was almost yelling at the monitor. There was a slight final scare, but it was more of an unsettling startle. I love all of Sandberg's work so far, and I can't wait to see more of his talented productions in the future.

For what it is, it's a good history lesson and introduction to the history of music in movie's history, going as far back to 1895 to explain how much score had an impact on the visuals of film. I got a kick out of seeing more obscure composers, a lot of whom I love, actually have a chance to talk about what they do in their profession. Hearing Christopher Young and Steve Jablonsky get the recognition they deserve made me smile a little. But aside from the self-congratulatory stance the documentary takes, I didn't actually get a whole lot out of it. Now, that's just a problem for me and me alone, since I'm an avid fan of movie music already, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. If you're just getting into movies and their accompanying soundtracks, this is a good documentary to get your start. But if you know even just a little bit of the ever-growing change of film music, this might not be for you. There was no clear question or hard topics being tackled like I expected, so part of me felt a little empty after watching. I got to see this at a screening where the director did a Q&A session afterwards, so that was nice to at least hear from him a little. I applaud his efforts, but it's just above-average to me. However, big props for the James Horner tribute in the end credits. That was nice.

I love that they even flat out mention Groundhog Day as a joke at the end of the movie. Nice little cherry on top of the cake. This movie was just badass. There's not a lot I can really complain about, actually, except for maybe one part dragging or a plot thread I thought was underdeveloped, but overall, not at all. From beginning to end, Happy Death Day is one of the funnest experiences I've had watching a movie in years. This really needs to become a classic like Krampus or other frequently mentioned horror flicks, and Jessica Rothe needs to have a career after this. Her talent she gave in this starring role was one of the most believable and raw performances I've seen from a horror protagonist since like Jamie Lee Curtis or Marilyn Burns. She was just absolutely-fucking-fantastic. She starts off as kind of a brat, and a bad person to her peers, but as the events unfold, a lot like Groundhog Day, she begins to make amends with her friends and family and change overall. Her father is mentioned throughout, him trying to call her every morning, and it's actually quite heartwarming to see her set things straight with him near the finale. There were a couple small details I liked that emphasized this thread. For example, at the beginning of the movie on the first day, her roommate makes her a cupcake for her birthday, but Theresa just throws the cupcake in the trash right in front of her. On the second, after the first kill, she just puts the cupcake on the dresser. On the third, she almost gets ready to eat it. There was some pretty clever writing that tricks the viewer into thinking the killer could be one person, but it's actually another. The ending was a little rushed with it's reveal, and that's the part where I mean underdeveloped, but I think it still works enough. Just like the protagonist, the movie doesn't spend too much time on this character, so the out-of-field reveal makes sense, to me at least.

Overall, just tons of extremely hilarious sequences that made me grin hard, especially the ones with Carter, played by Israel Broussard. I don't think I've smiled this hard watching a movie in quite awhile, all at the same time serving us with deliciously awesome horrific scenes. In one part, when Theresa is in a dorm room with one of her friends, who turns up the bass too loud, the killer starts stabbing him to death in the background while Theresa is distracted. She's on her phone, and she gets a text from a friend saying she hopes they both die, while the guy is being stabbed. Sorry, I just love little tie-ins like that. There's plenty more similar stuff written in, and I just had fun with that shit. I'd go as far to say I enjoyed this more than the recent outing of IT, which I did like. Horror has just been doing really well this year, and I'm glad it so is.

I have a soft-spot (sort of) for Anna and Elsa, just because of how cute they are. But beyond their short-lived moments on screen, this special has almost nothing going for it. I assume Josh Grad is easy to have, because he's not doing anything big as opposed to Idina Menzel, and Olaf is a hot-selling toy, so he's always ready to do more Olaf shorts. One of the biggest things I actually hate about this short is it drives home that the special bond Anna and Elsa carried throughout their childhood was the fact they shared Olaf drawings and creations to each other. Just fantastic, the biggest thing I hate about the Frozen cinematic universe, is what connects Anna and Elsa's love. Whatever. At least this short will entertain the kids, I suppose. But I want to know who the fuck approved a 23 minute short before a feature-length movie. I'm guessing Disney had absolutely no faith in Coco, so they had to rope people into seeing it because Frozen is smacked right on the poster. Well, to be fair, they may have had faith in Coco, but didn't think people would willingly see it. There's even like a 30 second behind the scenes glimpse before the movie starts, that plays after the Frozen short, talking about the amount of work that went into the animation in Coco. They're really hoping people appreciate the work that went into it, really coaxing them. My advice? Reserve your seats for the theater online, then show up a half hour late. You'll be fine, trust me.

I went in expecting absolutely nothing and came out mildly enjoying it. I'll just get a few things out of the way before I reach my verdict. As a rompy heart-felt Pixar movie, it works at hitting all the notes. Take your family to see it, you'll all enjoy it. If you're of Mexican heritage, I'm sure you will absolutely love the movie, I think that much is clear. I don't think anyone's shocked when the box office for this is the highest in all Mexico history. I've had a long, personal, and almost battered-house-wife-type relationship with Disney. That corporation has done so much shit in the past decade that has infuriated me to the point of boycotting any of their media, including the popular theme parks. But now that I have a MoviePass, I have no excuse to not see every movie that comes out into theaters, so I figured I'd waste a few hours to form my own opinion. Ignoring the infuriating Frozen short that plays before-hand, Coco excels at tugging the heart strings, while simultaneously adding nothing unique or original to Pixar's line-up. I know, according to premiere critics, every story-line that is possible has been done already, but it strikes me that Pixar doesn't really try to hide their formula. I think the biggest sin Coco commits is how blatant it is when it uses these cliches. The young boy who wants more out of life, but his family refuses to let him cliche, the villain is revealed to the world via hidden camera cliche, the stranger protagonist meets turns out to be family-related cliche, and so on, and so on. Some may not mind these tropes, and I'm totally okay with it. Ignoring the tiresome and eye-rolling story patterns, Coco does manage to shine through and give us a couple of great little moments, muddled in the predictable story. The twist reveal and flashbacks towards the end of the second act are the most interesting, to say the least, and will give people flashbacks to Jessie's backstory from Toy Story 2. It's the one aspect of the movie that really makes it stick out, as well as the nicely-done final ten minutes. I won't spoil what these are, but they're good sequences. They're what raise my recommendation for Coco from below-average to it's worth seeing in theaters. It's not something I'd rush out to see, but there's no harm in going to see it.

Jason Zeldes directs a passion project about the lives of students who take a Shakespearean novel and adapt it to their own cultural understanding. Donté Clark introduces the movie by stating he didn’t think much of play Romeo & Juliet when he was at the age of 15; however, at his introduction of street violence and gun killings, by the age of 22, he understood how much the story related to his current lifestyle. With the talent group, RAW Talent, him and a group of other young people go about adapting the famous story, in the hopes it will send a message to the citizens of Richmond.

The movie is shot with an observational verité style, in that the director doesn’t involve himself with the content in the movie, outside parts with paragraphed text. All of the students tell their stories through interviews and on-site recordings, like raw unprepared videography, footage varying in quality. What I like about Romeo is Bleeding the most is it’s fast-cut, nicely capturing the uneasy and tension-filled environment the movie was shot in, and, how Ken Jaworowski from The New York Times puts it, “mimics the hip-hop and jazz-inflected rhythms of the student-poets.” What made it most effective for me, was it’s use of voice-overs from interviews over additional footage. There’s a number of great sequences that illustrate the gravity of a situation by using this technique, like the sequence when the Chevron plant blows and you hear voices play as footage of the incident happens. There was great editing here.

I will be honest, however, that I had no expectations for this at all and wasn’t interested in the topic the movie presented. Romeo & Juliet just happens to be my least favorite play written by William Shakespeare, and the idea of poor or unprivileged youth using poetry to fix their situation sounded like a pitch for another drama that everyone’s seen before. I just had no interest in seeing that story again. Luckily, Zeldes does manage to make a couple of intriguing sequences, mentioned previously. Another good one was when you find out Dante’s brother was shot and killed right as he got out of prison, and the scene plays out very seriously. There’s no music playing and only the sounds of typewriting can be heard as he’s documented that he was killed on the street. What the documentary needed was a little more of that. I appreciated that Zeldes wanted to get every side of the story, including the police, but the biggest struggle I had to overcome to get through the entire film was a lot of the undeveloped pieces in the middle, ultimately making large sections of the movie seem pointless. That made it difficult for me to get through the entire piece, already have the task of overcoming my disinterest in the bare concept.

What gave the finale a nice little bow was seeing the crowd enthusiastic about RAW Talent’s finished play and giving hope in the audience that the dire situation may be turned around. I could detail how I disagree politically with some of the arguments given, but the point of reviewing a movie like this is for it’s filmmaking. Romeo Is Bleeding does a decent job with it’s aesthetic raw quality and giving the viewer some great scenes, but overall, just feels like a mess at times. Watch it depending on how much you care about the topic.

Wrote this for Film Appreciation Class.

You know what I recommend you do with your time instead of watching this? Take a fucking nap. This slug moves at the pace of a boring four hour epic you'd see from sixty years ago, yet it's run-time is miraculously only two hours and fifteen painful, agonizing, and traumatic minutes. You think this movie is a comedy? Fuck no. This is just another in a long line of pretentious "arthouse?" movies being falsely advertised to a general audience, only for it to backfire and cause terrible word of mouth/poor critical reception. I half-knew what I was getting into based on what I heard from initial viewings, but I still went in with the expectations I was going to see a drama with some comedy elements.

So, you may be asking, well hell, if this movie isn't a comedy, what is Downsizing all about? Here you go: immigration. Yup, that's it. Wow, how original. That hasn't been done already in a ton of other worthless indie projects in the past year. That's totally not wasting this interesting concept. Matt Damon has to star in another misleading political propaganda piece that has no a single aspect, story or technical, going for it. It's really a shame. Downsizing now finds itself in the ranks of other classics of 2017 like The Snowman and Gerald's Game, all with fantastic concepts and genuinely great things going for them, but fall flat on their face for just a few mis-steps. The first half-hour of this promises a fun and engaging satirical look at our current world with the introduction of a "solution" to man-kind's problems and jabs at popular culture. (The Leisure Land place is themed a lot like Disneyland, for example) There are good sequences here and there scattered mainly in the first half, but the movie, like, immediately changes it's interest from being about little people, and more about being a metaphor for America and immigrants. The second Damon arrives at an apartment complex that looks like a shitty Mexican place, topped off with graffiti and Spanish programming playing on a television, I felt like busting out laughing. Call me racist all you want, but holy lord, was this just hilarious, the mental gymnastics Alexander Payne was doing when writing this to justify some of this shit.

You might comment and say I'm just not getting or I hate it because of it's message, trust me, I'm not. I hate this movie because the fact they took this direction. I hate that they wasted such good potential with this. My father was actually looking forward to this and he thought this looked like an interesting comedy, but no, I'm going to have to tell him just a colossal trainwreck it actually is. I'm done. I'm not writing anymore about this. I need to stop going to see bad movies, but how?

Sony's Wreck-It Ralph. That's not an over-praising of this movie. It's a lot like that movie both in style and story elements, as it pokes fun references to most habits of video games. Like Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, there's lots of great character arcs and sweet moments, genuinely funny scenes, a heartfelt conclusion, and supremely creative fast-paced action. A bit of the story could use work in the last two acts. Some of the epic-feel that the first act presented was a little lost among the humor and formulaic story beats the last two acts kept striving for. There's the awkward romantic sub-plot involving two pairs of the group, a dramatic reveal of one of the introduced characters, a little tangent where a shut-in character is taught to do something brave and out-going, and etc. In comparison to Disney's movie, there's a lot of pretty clever in-jokes about the nature of video games, such as quick-time events, cut-scenes, and NPC's only have a limited range of programmed responses in conversations. What I wish the movie did was go all DAE way, just go nuts with it's premise and tackle video games as a whole. Go insane. Imagine what this movie could've been like if it went into hacking and using physics cheating like the shit you'd see in Garry's Mod servers. Holy lord, I'd pay to see that. But, you know, they got to keep things simple for most audiences, and that's okay. What makes the movie work very well, is it's characters and their interactions with one another. What delighted me was I was able to forget I was watching The Rock and Kevin Hart be themselves. They managed to pull performances that fit right in with their corresponding written characters (The ones outside the video game world). They felt subdued enough that it didn't feel like I was just watching celebrities on-screen acting stupid. Sure, there's stupid and way over-exaggerated jokes, but it works, and it's part of the fun. The whole movie works to certain degrees and that's what surprises me. I expected to just walk out so uninspired and lost on many of what it attempts to do, but I found myself smiling and some-what giggling along with the rest of the crowd, who were howling with laughter.

This is what a blockbuster should be. I'm not saying remake all old properties, but if you must, do something different with it. Give it a reason to exist. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle overcomes all of it's obstacles, remaking an "unremakable" classic, being branded with infamous Sony pictures, and having just general low expectations among other movies released around the same time. It's not perfect, there's beats I had issues with and there was a lot more that could've been developed, but as is, this Jumanji sequel explodes and roars a breath of relieving fresh air and was a lot of fun, something I don't say about most blockbusters of today. I'm looking at you, every shit Marvel movie released this year. Surprising to find the director of this mostly did adult comedies before this.

This is the definition of a crowd-pleaser horror movie, and it seems Blumhouse loves to churn those out. The biggest problem with this movie for me is it's obvious blandness and average quality. It's almost like the script is aware that it's using such a tired scenario, so they almost make fun of it at times. That doesn't mean it's a parody of itself, but it seems the cast knew what they were doing, and purposely wrote certain lines and shot scenes in some manners that are deliberately light in tone. I didn't expect to be this much comic-relief, but the audience I was with was laughing about the same amount of time as they were screaming. Which leads me into my argument, that this movie is only worth watching if you're seeing it with an enthusiastic crowd. Go opening weekend late at night when it's packed, it's hilarious. My theater was so loud, I was just enjoying myself at the reactions. But that's all this movie has going for it, besides a couple decent scenes and soundtrack. Don't watch it alone in your room, that's not what it's made for. Watch with friends or with a crowd or don't bother. Not the best way to start January, but this could've been way worse. Just painfully average.

I think I've figured out Guillermo Del Toro, or at least, what I love and hate about his films. They're gorgeous, stylish, sensual, passionate, and beautifully crafted, but ultimately fall short in the script department. This is a trend I've had with every single one of his movies, including Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, Pacific Rim, and now The Shape Of Water. In my opinion, this is his best work to date. It's the most emotional I've gotten watching one of his pieces. Sally Hawkins is what absolutely sells this picture, above the retro aesthetic and whimsical music. Her performance is what makes the story believable, not to say the other cast don't give it their all. This is one of the best performances, if not THE best performance to come out of last year. She is so believable, it took my breath away at some pivotal scenes, I'm not kidding. That's what I admire about Del Toro's movies above a lot of others, is the clear passion that's being put in behind the scene. Even for some of his lesser-good projects, I can't hate them.

What makes The Shape Of Water just fall a little flat to me, which others may not find a problem with at all, is some scenes feel too short and underdeveloped. I understand this is a fairy tale and the entire story is supposed to be strictly about Hawkins and her fall for the unnamed creature, but then, why are some characters, small side characters mind you, given in-depth back-stories and entire scenes, when the outcome has little to no effect from them? There's a Russian side-plot that has a major effect on the story, but we don't get to know really much about what their intentions are, outside of Michael Shannon's character giving them the creature. I'm not saying we need an intricate explanation or anything, but there are a couple scenes with the Russians that have little weight in the overall picture, making the thread feel loose. Then, the montage of Hawkins interacting with the creature in the lab also feels just a tad short. Believe me, it's a positive when I say I wanted to see more. There's one scene and a montage with the two of them connecting, and then before we know it, she has to get the creature out or the Russians will take him. This is also where the movie falls into James Cameron's Avatar-levels of emotional manipulation. Michael Shannon's character is a occasionally comically evil, to the point where my brain got disconnected from being engrossed in the love story, and I said, "...why is he doing this?" The movie seriously relies on the audience being one-hundred percent sucked into the relationship with Hawkins and the creature, for you to buy every single plot point. This works most of the time, but others it's a big stretching it. I understand, it's a fairy-tale, the movie even starts and ends with a narration, but I feel it needs to still be believable within the confines of that set-up, especially with the serious moments come up. There's this one part, where Hawkins starts singing, and it's this big moment, because this is the first time she's made a sound the whole movie, but then, the scene doesn't work for me, 'cause it's not her voice singing and the dance-number is too short and silly for me to take seriously. I can clearly pick-up what he was doing, but those few elements deflated the tension.

The film still works, despite all that. I give Del Toro all my respect and admiration, his love for this project is all over this movie. I just wish another, longer draft was considered when filming. I still highly recommend you go watch it, there's plenty to appreciate, even if it's muddled up in a weird and short-lived bubble of happiness.

You know, I gave this a below-average score when I initially watched it, but after thinking about this movie's place in the current wave of animated movies, I've bumped it up to a luke-warm recommendation. What do I mean? With the rise in such classic animated films to come out like The Emoji Movie and The Boss Baby, I almost feel obligated to recommend this movie just on the basis that it didn't insult my intelligence, and is a fine movie for children (or adults who are young at heart). I give the director Jayson Thiesson credit for going all out with the material and attempting to make this a Disney-style musical. The animation notably harkens back to great kid's films like The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, the character Pinkie Pie expressing some pretty colorful and eccentric faces. The point is, the animation is note-worthy, yes, it's all digital, but the work put in deserves appreciation more than some of the shit CG-movies out now. The bar has been set that low. The music is decent, encompassing a live orchestra to fuel the rather catchy songs, the characters are unique and recognizable, and overall, wasn't a chore to sit through. Remember, this wasn't made for me, but I'm glad it respects the adult viewers who are there watching. It's one of the better kid's movies to come out, we need to be encouraging this stuff, so, if you are an adult reading this, it's a decent pick to watch... well, if your kids haven't already asked to see it.

I'm not even going to be bother with a long review, this "big-budget" religious piece of confusing garbage doesn't deserve it. Unfortunately, it's not terrible enough to be funny, i-it gets close in a couple places, but falls into the just-trash mountain. Samson is the latest disaster by Pure Flix, after such smash hits like God's Not Dead 2. They decided to go big-budget for this one, which I guess means paying $50 for a shitty SD drone-camera that looks horrible every time it shows up, the left-over CG from Gods of Egypt, and actors plucked out of the middle of a porno. There were times I was expecting a sex scene to happen, just because the production design and script felt like something out of that. Samson's fake beard he gets half-way in is some of the worst make-up appliance I've ever seen, there's a reason there's a category for this at the Oscars. Billy Zane looks like he's doing this for the million dollar check I'm sure Pure Flix promised him, he's so fat and looks so out of place here. And they managed to drag Sokka from the live-action The Last Airbender on-set too. I walked out around the time he grabbed Billy Zane's crown from atop his head, I couldn't stop thinking about the "BALD!" scene from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. There's this quick little part before the third act beings, Samson and his brother step out of a cave, and good lord, the green-screen they had to use for these lines of dialogue is so horrible, I started laughing out loud in the middle of this empty theater. I feel awful for the class of Church kids that will probably be forced to endure this.

The fight choreography is terrible, the script is abysmal, the characters are flat with no depth, the special effects are eye-piercing, and the stock music deserves a round of applause. You guys know the Youtuber, Sargon of Akkad? They play his theme song in the movie, which I assume now is a stock piece of music. I really hope the budget for this wasn't any higher than $20,000. Monsters was made for less than $500,000 and Hardcore Henry was made for less than 2 million. Pure Flix, please just cancel God's Not Dead 3 now, have mercy on our souls.

There was such a huge missed opportunity to push a pre-established joke. In one bit, Dug is sneaking into the enemy's royal arena to get some soccer balls for their team's training. The girl, Goona, sees and asks what he's doing. Dug responds, "I need to get some balls." Goona just replies, "You're really brave... or stupid. Probably stupid." I was thinking after that, why didn't she say, "You already have some balls for sneaking in here."

This is literally Aardman's Space Jam. I'm not exaggerating, it's the same script practically. Take Space Jam, replace the "heroes being turned into theme park attractions" with "heroes being forced to work in a mine," and then replace the basketball with soccer. There you go, same thing. Problem is, it's not as good, or even memorable as Space Jam. The soundtrack and Michael Jordon's green-screened performance with the Looney Toons' characters made the film a cult classic, even earning it a 15th anniversary re-release. I applaud all of Early Man's cast and Aardman's stunning stop-motion work, but the story is not anything special. It's every h eroes' journey story ever told, and not done any differently. I don't remember any of the cave-men's names because none of them were really properly developed, and there's over ten of 'em. That's just the unfortunate nature of kid's movies that are an hour and a half long. That brings me back to my My Little Pony: The Movie, that, this was not made for me, but keeps the adults in mind so they're entertained. I'm a big fan of Nick Park's work, the Wallace and Gromit series is one of my favorite franchises of all time. So, if you are hesitant about seeing this movie, I'll just say, go see it under the following conditions: If you have kids, if you have MoviePass, and if you want to support the studio. If you don't fall under any of those, don't bother, I hate to say it. Judging strictly on it's technical merits, it's a very-average movie held up by it's stop-motion spectacle.

fuck that bear scene and fuck that camera footage

This is the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. movie I've always wanted. The disturbing imagery, psychological exploration, atmosphere, tension, it's all out of this world. The over-grown, disturbing, but entrancing layout of the shimmer is the long-awaited Chernobyl and Fallout-esque landscape I've wanted to see explored on-screen for years; but yes, it goes way beyond that. Ignoring it's few-and-far-between narrative hiccups, Annihilation is the one of few films in the past decade to have my full-attention start to finish. Come on, we all do this. I wasn't bouncing around ideas for my script for my review while I was watching, I wasn't thinking of other things in my mind as scenes passed by. Absolutely not, I was all in for this one. The story isn't what I'd consider too-brainy for the box office, in fact a number of it's themes are blatantly spelled out through dialogue, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting as hell. It's just abstract, which is what may be turning off the common audience. Despite it's on the nose nature, possibly from Paramount's pressures to make the movie more accessible, it manages to delve more into it's greater questions about evolution of life itself; the whole hour and forty minute journey of this project is a jaw-dropping experience. As I humorously stated above, there are a few very disturbing and shocking scenes here, so steer clear if you're squeamish at all, I was getting Sinister flashbacks.

The thing I've hated about a lot of productions coming out, is a lot of them fully grasp their potential. What do I mean? Many works, The Dark Tower comes to my mind, for example, may introduce a compelling plot point, like the main character has a connection to this object, or, this side-character came from an abused family, I don't know, some casual beat of the story that's introduced. But a lot of times what happens, is a segment like that is brought up, only to further move the story along, and that beat is totally ignored afterwards. I keep thinking, why not make the movie longer and tap into these really exciting ideas? You've got the base, go all the way with what you can within the story's limits. Go all the way. A real-world example, Silent Hill: Revelation, the master-piece-of-shit sequel to one of my favorite movies of all time, had an added set of characters that were introduced mid-way into the run-time, and the woman in the pair basically said, "We took a wrong turn, we got lost in the fog." And all I kept thinking was, "Why aren't we seeing that? That sounds like a cool and creepy tangent."

But even beyond that, not just plot-points, central themes of a movie. What I was worried, with Annihilation, was the environment in the shimmer is so fascinating and absorbing, I began to worry at a point the movie wouldn't explore it. It wouldn't show off much of the environment and what it's effects have been on what stays in it. But thankfully, it does tap into that realm, so I am satisfied. I kept saying, "Come on, come on, you're so close, just keep going with this creepy sequence," until finally, "Yes! You did it. You went all DAE way with it. I am happy." If there's one thing I hate about movies more than any other quality, it's untapped potential. Having a cool set-up only to go nowhere. Thankfully, Annihilation goes a long way and satisfies. If you want to be creeped the hell out, go see it right now.