slightlymad22

I just watched Havoc on Netflix.

The opening was a CGI mess; that I struggled to concentrate on, but once that was out of the way, I enjoyed this.

Tom Hardy always puts in a shift, I have loved Timothy Olyphant for years thanks to Justified, Like Hardy, Forest Whittaker is always reliable. I always enjoy seeing Luis Guzmàn on screen (not the case for years after Carlito's Way lol) I really liked Jessie Mei Li (who was in Last Night in Soho) as Ellie, Hardy's new rookie partner. Quelin Sepulveda and Justin Cornwell did well too, I wanted them to be okay.

One thing I appreciated, was the script does not give the characters plot armour, it's not predictable and some surprising people are killed.

Gareth Evans is a solid action director, I loved The Raid movies (I remember being excited when Sly said he was going to do better than The Raid with Expendables 3.) and I really enjoyed Gangs of London.

Other than the opening, the only things I didn't care for, was some of the action was hard to follow and it also got a bit too much, how all these bullets were being fired, without hitting who they meant to.

I just watched Back in Action

This is a lot of what is wrong with modern movies, the action is bland and uninteresting, the dialogue feels forced and unnatural and the plot twists are very predictable, and it has a green screen heavy finale. That said it isn't that bad.

Of the cast, this is Cameron Diaz's first movie since 2014 and she has not missed a step. Jamie Foxx is fine, he delivers my favourite line "Some things are a good okay, like how it's still okay to listen to Michael Jackson" I'm paraphrasing, but it made me smile. Glen Close is a delight (she was my favourite part of the movie), and her pet project is funny, whilst Andrew Scott and Kyle Chandler are fine support, but the kids were really annoying, not the actors, but the way they were asked to behave and the awful lines they were asked to say (You never believe for a moment, these guys are a family) whoever wrote this, does not have kids. I wouldn't be surprised if this was written by AI

Seth Gordon is hit and miss for me as a director. For every Horrible Bosses there is an Identity Thief, he directed one of my favourite episodes of Modern Family (When Cam joins Dylan's band and Phil's Dad visits) but then he directed the first two episodes of Night Agent, and I almost tapped out. Here he does a perfectly acceptable job, nothing memorable but not too boring. I did like his use of music (Etta James and James Brown) during some fight scenes.

It sets it up for a sequel, but I don't think we will get one.

This has the potential to be really good, instead it's just another movie this year, that was fine, just like Heads of State, Fountain of Youth, A Working Man, Echo Valley and Happy Gilmore 2.

I just watched Happy Gilmore 2 on Netflix

I love the first movie (it's my favourite Sandler movie), and I have been cautiously optimistic for this one.

And it was a massive let down. After a serious WTF moment in the first three minutes and the following ten minutes, where we see all Happy achieved in the first movie undone, there are not a lot of laughs. In fact I don't think I laughed once. I smiled a couple of times, but that was it.

Julie Bowen, Christopher McDonald and Ben Stiller all return (with varying amounts of screen time) as do a host of people from the first movie, Sandler regulars and some pro golfer's

Adam Sandler's daughter, Sunny Sandler, plays Happy's daughter Vienna, his wife plays her dance teacher, his other daughter Sadie Sandler plays someone Happy meets at an A. A meeting, Haley Joel Osment and Margaret Qualley are also here

It relies a lot on nostalgia, with plenty of flashbacks and callbacks. The new Happy place made me smile, I wasn't bored and it was nice to spend time with some of the characters again and I enjoyed what they did with Shootst, but overall this was a let down. I wanted to like it, so much more.