Ready Player One

Ready Player One is Steven Spielberg's latest foray back to the world of adventure movies. Based on the novel by the same name, this focuses on a digital world called the Oasis, and the game that the creator has set place in his death to find a successor - both for his fortune, and the control of Oasis itself. In any adventure story, there are the good guys and the bad guys. The film is led by Wade Watts, who goes by the name Parzival in the Oasis. He grew up in a poor charter in Ohio called the Stacks, and he wanted to win the prize money simply to better his life. It was only when he met a star player, Artemis, that his views about the contest has changed, and he along with the other players teamed up to defeat the bad guys. The villain is played by a corporation, led by Sorrento who would stop at nothing to win the game. With the world being focused on a digital scale (as well as the massive references the source had), this was going to be a feat visually. It was visually appealing, but veered more on style over substance. (SPOILERS)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

The Last Jedi is the second installment of the new trilogy written and directed by Rian Johnson. This picks up the action after the events of Force Awakens - the Resistance is fleeing and is being attacked, while Rey needed to persuade Luke Skywalker to come back to fight. From there, the movie shifts to three story arcs led by Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron, with their arcs eventually merging towards the end of the film. The company must have been happy with Johnson's work, as he is starting another trilogy for them. While this installment has its share of controversy and backlash, this was an entertaining movie that leans towards a formulaic blockbuster film. note: spoilers

Justice League

Justice League is DC’s foray into introducing new but familiar characters, and an entry way to the solo movies these characters have lined up. Taking place after the events of Batman v Superman, Batman recruits people with special abilities to take on a threat that can destroy the world. While far from being a flawless flick, Justice League does enough to quench the thirst for the new characters, but not enough to be a solid blockbuster that it should be.

Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok is the third installment in the Thor franchise, and has a much different tone from its predecessors. The movie has Thor facing the biggest battle known in Norse mythology – Ragnarok, the end of the world. In this case, Ragnarok meant the end of Asgard, the place getting engulfed in flames. This isn’t a spoiler; the events of Ragnarok have been explained in the opening credits. In this installment, Thor faces Hela, Goddess of Death. The viewers find out what happened to Hulk, and more of Norse mythology comes to play in the form of Valkyrie. Ragnarok is an entertaining installment in the Marvel universe, but it doesn’t really have much working for it. *spoilers ahead*

Baby Driver

Baby Driver is about the life of a young man who works as a getaway driver for a heist group. The driver, aptly named Baby, is quite the music enthusiast, and employs a soundtrack for his daily life. All of this is revealed during the opening sequence, marking the momentum and the kind of character Edgar Wright visions Baby to be. Baby’s life, and thus the narrative, takes a turn when he eventually meets another music-loving soul. *review contains spoilers

Dunkirk

For the record, I don’t normally watch war movies and in turn, have not seen a lot of them. My brain shuts off when I hear that a movie is set during some kind of war. Movies like Captain America and Wonder Woman don’t count because even if they are set in a world war background, the war isn’t the focus of the film. Because of this, I haven’t seen any of the great war flicks, or watched movies that I am genuinely interested in watching because of the war aspect. However, I found myself paying to watch Dunkirk, with 50% of the reason being the fact that if I wait for it on DVD, there is a high chance that I wouldn’t watch it immediately. That ticket was definitely worth it, as Dunkirk is a flawless work from Christopher Nolan.

Demolition Man

It’s 2036 and it’s a different Los Angeles in Brambilla’s Demolition Man, an entertaining action piece starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. They play John Spartan and Simon Phoenix respectively, and we meet their characters in a crossfire after years of Spartan trying to catch Phoenix. When the incident goes awry, it sends both of them into a cryogenic prison where they would be kept frozen until their respective parole hearings years later.

The Net

If you’re looking for an uneven movie about computer programs, murders, and dated computers, look no further than 1995’s The Net – or another movie that sounds similar to this but isn’t The Net. This sums up much of my thoughts about the movie but when I ended up sitting through the whole ordeal thinking ‘it’s not so terrible but still really bland’, why not write about it?

So Close

So Close was the first Hong Kong movie that I’ve seen. As I haven’t watched this for a very long time, I thought I’d go revisit it. This movie is about assassins and a rookie cop whose worlds cross when the cop investigates a death in a company.

Sherlock, Jr

Sherlock Jr is my first foray into silent film. With that said, I'm not sure how to go about this review. Are there any methods or techniques that I should be looking at? I know nothing about the silent film industry so I will be sharing my thoughts about this film at its face value. Sherlock Jr focuses on a movie theater employee who takes an interest in detective work.  His interest gets put into test when a gold watch turns missing.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange is Marvel Studio’s newest addition to their universe, introducing characters and stories that deal with the mystical realm. The new superhero is in the form of Stephen Strange, a bright neurosurgeon whose life takes a turn when he loses his abilities due to an accident. He goes and seeks for a way to heal, leading him to the door of The Ancient One, and his journey to becoming the next superhero. Note: this review contains spoilers.

Terminator Genisys

Terminator: Genisys is the recent attempt to reboot a franchise that has earning power is in need of a reboot due to the decline of the previous attempts. This installment is a means to rewrite the Terminator franchise events in hopes to launch a new take on the series. Unfortunately, there were factors that cannot be overlooked that led to the dismissal of the revival.

Train to Busan

The movie opens to a checkpoint area by the highway. Men wearing protective gear patrol the area. A delivery truck passes by and stops, the men checking the contents, and allows the truck to pass through. In a fluster over the checkpoint, the driver accidentally hits a deer and decides to drive off instead of tending to the dead animal. A short point passes by and the deer springs back to life, but instead of the eyes being its normal color, it has changed into light blue.

Gladiator

When Gladiator was released (and eventually won the Best Picture Oscar), everyone I knew wanted to watch it. They heard it was epic and grand, something expected of a historical film like this. I would have probably liked it as much if I had seen it during that time. This was not the case.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I’m not even going to try to sugar coat it, but Batman v Superman was awful. Despite the critical slams, I went ahead and watched it just to see how terrible people are making this out to be. I was disappointed, because there were good parts and ideas, but the sum of all these parts just made one terrible production. I hope this will be remedied in the future movies if the DC franchise wants to survive in the cutthroat world of superhero movies. This review contains spoilers.

Sicario

Sicario is the latest venture from Denis Villeneuve, a filmmaker who has skyrocketed since his incredible directing turn in Enemy, as well as his previous works. Starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, it goes in the world of drug cartels as FBI Agent Kate Macer was brought to a task force headed by Matt Graver, only to see results she wasn’t exactly betting on.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Happy New Year everyone! What better way to start a new year with a film everyone watched over the holiday season – The Force Awakens! I didn’t get to see it until after Christmas so avoided all reviews (including spoiler free ones) until I got to watch it for myself.* I went to watch the original trilogy in preparation for the seventh film. The wait was over, everyone was simply raving about it on social media – I have to say, I definitely agree with the hype; the film simply delivers to expectation and I cannot wait for the next installment.

*It was almost a spoiler-free run, until my cousin mentioned a scene over Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas to me. 

Spectre

If Daniel Craig's planning to end his run as James Bond, this is a great movie to end it with, no strings attached. Set after the death of M (Judi Dench), Bond was given a task to locate a man and kill him. The opening sequence leads to Bond's hunt for the man, eventually masking the organization that has been behind multiple terrorist attacks. It doesn't help that the man in charge has a link to Bond's past. Besides that, MI6 has also been dealing with a new head of international security whose mission is to announce the Double 0 program obsolete and shut it down.

Tomorrowland

I had expectations when it came to this movie. For starters, it’s directed by Brad Bird – he worked on The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ghost Protocol. So with his attachment to a movie came the stigma that he was going to deliver something good. The case isn’t exactly the same for Tomorrowland.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Marvel brings us the newest installment of the franchise where we get to see the Avengers fight a new enemy, make new allies, and find out more about the lives of the superheroes. While this is much grander than the first one, there was something in the first movie that made it stand out but it doesn’t seem to be replicated here.