christian-larson

Game Night is the latest comedy made by the people who made Horrible Bosses, which I also liked. This movie is fun. The highest praise I can give the movie is the cinematography. I was really surprised with it. There are shots in which the cars and the surroundings look like game pieces, which is such a great choice. The action scenes are very well made, the camera is so creative and it sometimes reminded me of Edgar Wright. I absolutely loved the cinematography. The script is decent and it could have been easily fixed. The big twist at the end surprised me and it was a great payoff. Unfortunately, the movie aside from the twist is kinda predictable. Its a very safe script, but I laughed a lot throughout the movie. The acting is decent, and the only standout is Jesse Plemons and Rachel McAdams. They did not play themselves and actually got into their characters. The rest of the cast are really boring. The characters are not really all that special. The pacing was really good. I really enjoyed Game Night and although it could have been great, its a perfectly fine entertaining comedy.

Tomb Raider is the latest video game adaptation by Roar Uthaug, a nameless director. Rarely is a video game movie good, in fact, its never good. Its no surprise here. This is your typical action movie with your typical dialogue and typical everything. It's very cliched and flawed. The direction and script are awful. I was never entertained during the movie. There is no attempt to make an interesting character out of Lara. She never learns anything, she never has any arcs nor any development. There is no style in this movie, it's so factory based, its disgusting. There's nothing special about the camerawork, the editing, nothing is even remarkably good. Its just below average. The editing is ok. The color grading is actually pretty gross looking. Its so frustrating that you have a beautiful jungle and it looks disgusting since the color grading is all gray and ugly. There are some nice shots of the beach and of a camera following Lara running. But that's it. Everything else is either boring, average, or, painfully cringe inducing. The dialogue in this film is atrocious. Most of the dialogue is cliched and conventional, and some of them are so cringe. The ending tries to make an "intriguing" twist, but it just falls flat completely. It comes out of nowhere and in retrospect, it does not make sense at all. The acting is also really bad. Alicia VIkander does a terrible job, and her shouts in the movie are so laughable. It's sad that this movie actually takes itself seriously. Don't see it. 3/10

The Commuter is the latest Liam Neeson action movie about how Michael needs to resolve the situation he is in. Its very unusual for Liam Neeson to be bad in a movie. He is really good here as he gives a very physical performance and he is convincing as this ex-cop. The directing here is surprisingly really good as there are many creative choices made to the story to make it above-average. The pacing is also really quick and fun as it has no scene that drags. The acting overall is good, nothing awful, nothing amazing. The only actor that is really great is Liam Neeson, the rest are fine. The script is probably my biggest issue here. The script is very obvious and its made for the audience to understand everything and there is no subtlety, which could have made the movie better. The story is very cliched, and there was rarely a moment that surprised me, aside from the directing. The cinematography can go to awful to great. There is a scene in which Michael is talking with a former friend. And the camera work is so horrific, i was getting dissy. It was hand-held and it was shaking. I didn't understood why did the director made that choice, but it was distracting. But later there is a really good action scene which is tricked to be filmed without takes. So the cinematography is 50/50 for me. Overall, this is a really entertaining movie and a very well directed one. 6.5/10